The annals of "I'm not antivaccine," part 15: California SB 277, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the vaccine "holocaust"

Later today, I'll be on my way to New York City to take part in the Science-Based Medicine portion of NECSS. I'm very much looking forward to it, not the least because I haven't been to New York in five years but even more so because I look forward to meeting up with the rest of the SBM crew and those interested in science and skepticism and trying, in my small way, to impart some little bit of what I've learned over the years about quackery, pseudoscience, and how to counter them. As a result, blogging might be more sporadic than usual for a few days. I mean, I haven't even quite finished my talk yet, which is why I'm thankful for plane rides. Let's just say that right now my talk is like my blog posts and as a result needs some serious pruning if I'm to finish it within the allotted time in a comprehensible manner.

In the meantime, there's a little tidbit that I can't help but comment on briefly. I've pointed out time and time again how antivaccine activists resent being called "antivaccine." They will draw themselves up (metaphorically speaking if online) in a self-righteous fury and retort, "I'm not 'antivaccine.' I'm a vaccine safety advocate. I'm pro-safe vaccine!" It's a retort that goes back to Jenny McCarthy in 2008 and by others even before, although it was Jenny McCarthy's co-optation of that particular technique of denial that first brought it to my attention. It seems so long ago!

Of course, it's a lie. The lie is revealed rather easily just by observing a type of comparison that antivaccinationists like to use not infrequently when they get a bit worked up. I've documented antivaccine activists comparing vaccination and their fantasy of "vaccine-induced autism" to everything from human trafficking, to rape, the Titanic, Nazi-ism, and, of course the Holocaust. In fact, comparisons to the Holocaust seem to be a favorite, complete with mentions of Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi physician who carried out horrific medical experiments on prisoners at Auschwitz.

Translation: "This congenitally handicapped person costs the nation, as a whole, 60,000 Reichsmark over a lifetime. People this is your money. Read Neuses Volk"

Neuses Volk was a mass-market, illustrated magazine aimed at a wide audience as the monthly publication of the Office of Racial Policy in Nazi Germany. It was dedicated to the "excellence" of the Aryan race and the "deficiencies" of Jews, Poles, and other groups and published many articles defending eugenic sterilization, often juxtaposing photos of mentally incapacitated children with those of healthy children.

I bring this up because a certain antivaccine crank, someone I've been writing about just shy of a decade now has over the last several months been trying to deny that he's antivaccine, even going so far as to call himself "fiercely pro-vaccine" back in September. Yes, I'm referring to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., one of the crankiest of antivaccine cranks out there. RFK, Jr. is utterly convinced, against all evidence otherwise, that the mercury-containing preservative thimerosal that used to be in childhood vaccines in the US until around the end of 2001, when it was removed from nearly all of them, is a major cause of the "autism epidemic," as he spreads conspiracy theories about the CDC so obviously nonsensical that I almost feel embarrassed for him. Almost. His arguments in general are so full of crankery that it's hard not to feel contempt for him.

So what's he up to this time? Well, lately, RFK, Jr. has been doing his utmost to assist antivaccine advocates and "health freedom" activists to defeat SB277 in California. SB277, as you might recall, is a bill introduced by State Senators Richard Pan and Ben Allen that would repeal the personal belief exemption to school vaccine mandates. Seemingly every major antivaccine activist in the country has been invading California to try to defeat the bill, including, of course, RFK, Jr. had to be part of the action, while promoting his antivaccine movie Trace Amounts.

But some parents fear information about the hazards of vaccines has been suppressed, largely because of what they call the pharmaceutical industry’s influence over health officials. Many parents believe their children have been damaged by vaccines. When Kennedy asked the crowd of a few hundred viewers how many parents had a child injured by vaccines, numerous hands went up.

“They get the shot, that night they have a fever of a hundred and three, they go to sleep, and three months later their brain is gone,” Kennedy said. “This is a holocaust, what this is doing to our country.”

Look at the contempt for autistic children (and, let's be clear, this is about the myth that vaccines cause autism). Look at what RFK, Jr. says: "Their brain is gone." In other words, they were human, but vaccines made them somehow less than human because what makes them who they are, their brains, is gone. RFK, Jr.'s reference to the Holocaust is unintentionally appropriate, but not in the way RFK, Jr. meant it. Such an attitude ("their brain is gone") would not have been out of place in, ironically enough given all the Nazi analogies that antivaccinationists like to make, Nazi Germany. After all, one of the slogans used by Nazis to justify the T4 euthanasia program in which "mental defectives" were "euthanized" was "Lebensunwertes leben," or "life unworthy of life."

In all fairness, it's obvious that RFK, Jr. isn't advocating killing autistics. He is, however, expressing attitudes that allowed the T4 euthanasia program to be tolerated, even supported, by German civilians. Vaccines took away their brains! It's a meme we hear frequently from antivaccine parents who believe vaccines caused their child's autism. Their child was perfectly normal until vaccines ruined him! Vaccines took their "real" child away. This sort of thinking is also used as justification for "autism biomed" quackery that seeks to "recover" the child. The very word "recover" implies finding something that was lost, as though the autistic child is not the parents' real child but the real child can be "recovered" with the appropriate quack treatments.

What I'd really love to see sometime in the near future would be for a journalist interviewing RFK, Jr. to answer his claim that he is "fiercely pro-vaccine" by asking him, "If that's the case, then why did you refer to vaccines causing a high fever that takes away a child's brain and then use the word 'holocaust' to describe it?"

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Antivaccinationists like Holocaust analogies. I've described this particularly loathsome phenomenon more times than I can remember, most recently when Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. compared the "vaccine-induced autism epidemic" (vaccine-induced only in RFK, Jr.'s imagination and that of…

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What's Laura Helmuth got that I haven't got?
Why won't Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. call me to complain about all the not-so-Respectful Insolence I've directed his way over the years. I mean, seriously. I spend nearly eight years criticizing his antivaccine…

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is despicable.
I just wanted to get that off my chest. (Do clear Plexiglass boxes full of multicolored blinky multicolored lights even have chests?) The reason for my outburst will become painfully apparent all too soon, but I just had to say that. There's also one other…

There is a reason why, back in the days of Usenet, convention dictated that the side making the comparisons to the Nazis was considered to have lost the argument. RFK Jr. illustrates that reason all too well. Autistic kids can grow up to be productive adults, though it does take lots of patience from the parents. These kids aren't zombies, no matter how much RFK Jr. insinuates this. And it's a good thing if some help is available for the parents of such kids.

Why is he harping on an ingredient which was removed from vaccines ages ago? Doesn't he know all the cool antivaxxers (like Suzanne Humphries and "MIT scientist" Stephanie Seneff) have moved the goalposts to blame aluminum?

"They" still continue to blame Thimerosal because of the Flu vaccine, despite the fact that uptake for that particular vaccine is substantially lower than most other vaccines.....and despite the fact that thimerosal isn't in pediatric flu vaccines (like Flumist) or in the vaccines recommended for pregnant women.

There just isn't any getting through to these people - they accept outright lies as facts all the time.

I guess that Kennedy's rally outside the chambers didn't make much of a difference ( see Heckenlively, AoA).
Dachel and her commenters ( AoA) have their knickers/ panties in a twist/ knot/ bunch over the bill.

I just heard that infamous twit, Toni Bark ( @ PRN, tape. yesterday) say that the reason California- and other places- are pushing these draconian measures is to pre-empt the eventual rush away from vaccines when the CDC whistleblower gets the full attention of the press. It has nothing at all to do with the measles outbreak whatsoever. She ranted about liberals/ liberal press and media being in bed with the pharma/ media corporatocracy or suchlike.

I suppose anti-vaxxers are starting to see that legislators are not on their side in most places.

-btw- re NECSS
It'll be held at the Fashion Institute of Technology which is near a new hub of activity ( esp bars/ Korean restaurants) AND Curry Hill. Not that far from SoHo, NoHo and the various Villages.
Have fun, Orac !

I suppose anti-vaxxers are starting to see that legislators are not on their side in most places.

The legislators, like most of their constituents, are re-evaluating the anti-vax movement now that the measles outbreak (on top of localized outbreaks of pertussis in some states) has demonstrated that these people aren't harmless loons--there is actual danger to catering to their conspiracy theories. The realization that, "This could happen to my kid," has a way of clarifying the issue.

As for why RFK Jr. and certain others continue to stress thimerosal: They have publicly backed the wrong horse to such an extent that even if they know it's the wrong horse, they can't retreat without exposing themselves to themselves as know-nothings. If they maintain their position, they can convince themselves that they are still fighting the good fight. Even though, to the rest of us, they look like a cartoon character who has gone out on a limb and is now sawing off that limb. They may be hoping for the cartoon physics outcome that the tree (or cliff face) collapses, leaving them intact. But real world physics doesn't work that way.

Yvette, I think that Kennedy Jr and his ilk harp on about thiomersal is that they are playing on the known neuro-toxicity of mercury and, intentionally or otherwise (but see also the whole chelation farrago), equating autism with the neurological damage caused by certain heavy metals.

I was at the hearing yesterday and plan to be at the hearing net week.

At the rally, there were few signs indicating "autism is vaccine injury". A lot of anti-government signs, like, "keep the government out of my body" "my child my choice" "CDC whistleblower" and various things about corruption. Also, signs indicating the notion that vaccines are terribly terribly dangerous -- "where there's a risk, there must be a choice".

During the public commentary bit, almost all the red shirts (anti-SB277) said that they or their child or children were "vaccine injured". Injury unspecified of course.

There was a lot of mention of mutations in the MTHFR gene predisposing to "vaccine injury" and some whining about how said mutation isn't listed by CDC as a valid reason not to vaccinate. I don't know where that comes from.

Kennedy is touring the country and appearing at presentations of the movie Trace Amounts, which is billed as

the true story of [the filmmaker's] painful journey through mercury poisoning that he believes resulted from a thimerosal-loaded tetanus shot.

Yes, the filmmaker claims that the injection of a tuna sandwich's load of mercury changed his life by poisoning him as an adult.

How can anyone believe that tripe?

Kennedy appeared in California to claim that a preservative which was long ago removed from pediatric vaccines and which (by law) cannot be administered to young children or pregnant women in California, will somehow cause a "holocaust" (apparently of autism) unless parents in California can refuse to allow their children to receive vaccines that don't have that preservative in it.

Senator Holly J. Mitchell was magnificent in schooling Dr. Boob about what the bill actually says, as opposed to what he had been flogging.

Her voice rising with indignation, Mitchell asked bill opponents to find language in SB 277 barring vaccine exemptions for children with medical disorders, which numerous witnesses contended the bill would bar. Eventually, a physician who has become a prominent vaccine dissident conceded he could find none.

More than just holding separate beliefs, lawmakers and activists seemed to be operating from distinct sets of facts. When Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, a pediatrician, said there were no confirmed deaths from measles vaccines, he was greeted with laughter and someone shouting the word “lie!”

Jeremy White writes The Capitol Alert for the Sacramento Bee, and tweets at @capitolalert. He seemed gobsmacked by some of the testimony yesterday, particularly small children being coached to say, "I am vaccine injured and I oppose SB277".

I think that the anti-vaccine contingent is motivated by deep emotional issues rather than by good sense : many of them may derive their identity and social life from their beliefs and activism.. They're caught up in it .

Many supporters of vaccines do so because it is just good sense and they may expect that nearly everyone will agree.
I know that if this were an issue where I live, I probably wouldn't attend hearings even though I feel strongly.

@ brian There's the audio only of Kennedy's presentation at the Commonwealth Club on YouTube. Gawd almighty, he's a dreadful public speaker and a pathological liar. During the first half hour of his presentation, he managed to state...

- "Dr. Offit did not recuse himself from the ACIP voting on the Rotashield vaccine, because he had a rotavirus vaccine under development."

- "Senior CDC scientist "Bill" Thompson hired a whistle blower attorney because he had taped discussions, where he stated we was forced to lie". (No mention that Hooker and Wakefield secretly taped his private telephone conversations).

- "Thompson sent tens of thousands of papers to Congress and is hoping to be subpoenaed by Congress."

- "We are waiting for Congressman Jason Chafetz or another member of the Oversight Committee will subpoena Thompson."

- "This is the first time I've been allowed to discuss this at a public forum. All the journalists refuse to touch the issue. There are a few good journalists out there; Dan Olmsted and Sharyl Attkisson. Every journalist is getting talking points from the CDC and the vaccine industry.

- "When we decided to to publish the book we removed the whole chapter on autism because we knew if we put it in we would be censored by every media outlet. There are 37 studies in that chapter that show links to Thimerosal causing autism".

My regular podcast scroll includes the "Commonwealth Club" lectures which are usually politicians, artists, scientists and diplomats. The show is broadcasted on KQED public radio on Friday nights. Often the program is good but occasionally they line up the crackpots. This week it's RFK jr. I listened to it yesterday and now I know that Thimerosal is half mercury and there is an Autism epidemic. Wake up America! No one will give RFK a platform anymore, not even Salon.com. It's a grand conspiracy and the New York Times is in on it too. RFK claims how much science he knows and there are 200 papers suppressed by the CDC and his dad was cool and therefore he knows the science because he really knows science. Big pharma and the vaccine makers are just money grubbing evildoers and they are all deliberately injuring our children just like the holocaust and Mengele.
The audience cheers for him which I suspect was called up through his social media. He stumbled a little when asked about the difference between methyl and ethyl mercury but came alive passionately invoking the 'science' that the mercury in thimerosal "far far far far" more toxic than the mercury in fish.
Search Commonwealth Club in iTunes if you think can stomach it.

There was a lot of mention of mutations in the MTHFR gene predisposing to “vaccine injury” and some whining about how said mutation isn’t listed by CDC as a valid reason not to vaccinate. I don’t know where that comes from.

Thimerosal has become the phlogiston of the anti-vax movement... I'm actually encouraged that RFK jr has continued his journey beyond the fringe by refusing to abandon what has long become a dead issue. The farther he heads into the wilderness, the less influence he'll garner.

Maybe the only way to combat this ridiculousness is by linking it to other crazy conspiracy theories. Like attending rallies with signs saying "Vaccines Alien Sterilization Plan" or "Vaccinations Plot from New World Order"

I thinkn we got them wrong. Kennedy and his ilk are not antovaccine, they really are pro safe vaccines. And no, the holocaust comparisons don't disprove that. Instead those just show that he and his kind are pro safe holocaust!

In the words of George Carlin "Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups." The problem with those of us on the pro-vax side is we think the other side will listen to logic and reason.Clearly they cannot.They are simply not capable of it .I think events like the Disneyland measles outbreak,and the death of that child in Germany are tipping points,but not the only ones.I think it is time for "our side" to start adopting some of the tactics of the antivax movement if we are ever going to win this.They play a dirty game,and do not fight fair,and neither should we.

RK: You should know. Frankly, I think three things need to happen: First of all, hit 'em in the pocket books. If the parents don't vaccinate, they don't get to deduct the kids from the tax bill. Also, enact a community health fee. Secondly, put the parents on the radar of CPS. Doctors should also be empowered to put in a two-tier system: vaccinated kids get the waiting room with toys, a special party every year, and get seen quicker. Nothing will infuriate a spoiled suburban mama like watching other people jump ahead of her in line.

The point that needs to be made here is much of the ado from parents with "injured" children is over their guilt...they brought an imperfect child into the world. There MUST be blame for it can't be their "fault". That there are genetic accidents in development and an occasional real interaction (we suppose), is not the issue. As soon as they internalize the problem, we have a chance.

The Kid has a post up about SB277, and, surprise, he's against it. Money quote-

Chillingly enough, LA and Sacramento “journalists” support the bill anyway. That means they are not journalists, but propagandists for the cover-up who should be investigated as such.

Meanwhile, the politicians who vote in favor of the bill despite not having seen “Trace Amounts” should be voted out for failing their constituents. The bill’s architect Richard Pan should further lose his medical license for coercing people into subjecting their children to harmful immunization policies defended on lies.

Two measures that everyone who isn't a raving anti-vax/alt-med/Cluster B nutcase should be able to agree on, however:

1. No public schooling for anti-vaxxers' kids. They want to opt out of the social compact? That's fine; that's their choice. They just don't get to freeload on all its benefits while shirking all its responsibilities is all.

2. Anti-vaxxers must all pay into an insurance fund that compensates the victims of vaccine-preventable diseases , just as NVICP already compensates those individuals who suffer [genuine] vaccine injuries. What's good for the Big Pharma goose is good for the Big Quacking gander too.

(#2 should also make anti-vax propagandizing into a self-limiting condition as the more anti-vaxxers convince others not to vaccinate, the more frequent and serious disease outbreaks will become, skyrocketing their premiums in response.)

Alas, due to the craven and corrupted nature of modern politics, both will inevitably require huge organized public support to drive into law. But that's what you should be doing if you want to make a genuine difference (and aren't just merely in it for the lulz). Good - and bad - bills don't succeed or die on their own, you know.

Yep. Everyone who disagrees with him is either part of the conspiracy, or a mindless sheep. Doesn't matter who it is - doctors, journalists, politicians, concerned citizens. It doesn't even matter how convincing the evidence is - it came from a tainted source, so he can safely ignore it.

It takes a special kind of hubris to feel this way. "Well this makes sense to me, and I'm very smart. So if it doesn't make sense to you, you are either stupid or lying."

if you
get in a car with them, then bad things happen
go to a party at their mansion, then bad things happen
are a passenger on their private plane they're sure they know how to fly, then bad things happen
live next door at age 14, one very bad thing happens

And the enlightened Realy Wise, Peeple Not Sheeple crowd wants to take medical advice from this clan...

OT, but as we are on a public forum with potentials readers who don't have the faintest idea about handling an animal with big hooves and a tendency for kicking out:

Don't try this home, kids.
Wait for the horse to move if you want some fertilizer.

Horses are terrible conversationalists anyway, you shouldn't rely on either end of them as a source of good arguments.
Although, if you have a choice between RFK Jr and a donkey, pick the donkey. One is making more of an @ss of himself than the other.

Only slightly OT-saw the Law and Order:SVU on the measles vaccine last night (it airs a bit later over here). Not bad. Over-entitled, smug, crunchy mom; medically fragile toddler hospitalized; child endangerment charges. Haven't been over to AoA to see the communal stroke, but can only imagine.

While I love the theory of making them pay, most un or undervaccinated children are not because of anti-vax parents. There are a whole range of barriers, including language, transport and work, that disproportionately affect poor people. If you're not going to remove those barriers, you're just punishing the people on the bottom of the heap for being there.

If you were going to make it a condition of school enrolment and have a clinic at the school that parents didn't have to attend, that would actually improve things on both sides - the antivaxxers are kept out, and the mum's working two jobs don't have to take time off.

Deb, well said. To that end, the high school here does have an on site clinic, run by the local community health center, that works with families to make sure (among other things) vaccinations are up to date.

Y'know it's pretty odd that in over 25 years of working in child and adolescent mental health, around young people with ASD and their families, with a former colleague of Michael Rutter (co-developer of the ADI-R) and the like, I never once heard a term remotely resembling "mind/brain is gone"...I've only ever heard that from the likes of RFK Jr and other "I'm not really anti-vax but won't someone think of the children!" numpties...

Don't schools administer shots anymore? Back in my grade-school years, we all lined up for 'em at the nurse's office as needed. I couldn't get the polio one because of my mom's sensitivity to live vaccines, but otherwise I never heard of anybody objecting to getting them. Our parents had vivid memories of people being incapacitated or killed by the diseases these shots were preventing.

most un or undervaccinated children are not because of anti-vax parents.

Not quite on point.

Let's talk about incoming kindergarteners in California. There are four sets of students: those who are fully vaccinated for age; those who are missing one or more of the required vaccinations, but whose parents intend to meet the requirements -- these students start school under something called Conditional Entry (CE); those who have a permanent medical exemption (PME) from one or more required vaccinations; and those whose parents have signed a Personal Belief Exemption (PBE) from one or more required vaccinations.

SB277 only addresses the last set of students. It leaves the CE provision untouched. Addressing the CE students' needs for vaccination in something handled at the school or district level. Many high-needs California schools have joined the "Community Schools" movement

Using public schools as hubs, community schools bring together many partners to offer a range of supports and opportunities to children, youth, families and communities. Partners work to achieve these results: Children are ready to enter school; students attend school consistently; students are actively involved in learning and their community; families are increasingly involved with their children's education; schools are engaged with families and communities; students succeed academically; students are healthy - physically, socially, and emotionally; students live and learn in a safe, supportive, and stable environment, and communities are desirable places to live.

So this bill in no way is designed to be

punishing the people on the bottom of the heap for being there.

And while there were a few Black and Latino people speaking out against SB277, the notion of barriers to health care did not come up even once (well, except for Senator Holly Mitchell's address to the audience). The anti-SB277 forces were overwhelmingly white.

At any rate, if anyone here hasn't previously experienced the unmitigated, sublimely thrilling joy of hearing Mr Kennedy speak, please, please go over to AoA: Dachel has put up a video ( the first 20 minutes or so) which delivers that incomparable experience rather effortlessly and there is a question section as well ( in the video) and additional printed explication and questions. In the taped material, he explicates the collusion between industry, government and the media which undermines vaccine safety and discusses solutions to that nefarious incestuous corruption.

@Liz I think the bill sounds like a great idea and has nothing to do with punishing people. As you point out, it is clearly aimed at those who are unvaccinated through choice, and I'm all for tightening that.

I was replying to has and PGP at #36 who were advocating fines and no public school. I'd love consequences for those who choose not to meet their responsibilities, but not taking it out on their children, who have no choice, or others who are facing barriers.
California appears to have a good system for supporting children to be vaccinated, but when general measures are discussed it's important not to get carried away. I'd love to see school vaccine mandates here (Australia), I watch situations like this with interest to see how it can work successfully.

I don't think that laws keeping unvaxed kids out of public schools is the answer.More an more antivax parents would just turn to home schooling,given that at least half of all US states do not require vaccines for home schooled kids.

Home schooling is a big haven for antivaxers.Do some reading about this.

Laws that force antivax parents to pay into a fund that compensates parents of children who are disabled or killed by vaccine preventable diseases is one of the the things we seriously ought to consider.

Home-schooling is of course a haven for all sorts of things -- at least as I understand it, it's largely used by fundamentalists asa way to shield their children from learning anything that might cause them to question doctrine. It's part of the cocoon that some "Christian" faith communities spin around themselves to keep out the modern world, and results in the end from the foolish decision sometime in the 19th century to treat the Bible as a science book. You don't see a lot of Catholics, Presbyterians, Congregationalists, and what have you home-schooling their kids to preserve their doctrinal purity.

The anti-vax crowd might crow about "home-schooling" but I believe the vast majority of them have no idea what it entails....I think you'd see a very quick change of heart once they realize the commitment....

Honestly your all a bunch of scaredy cats about these benign childhood diseases. You drank the koolaid and are scared shitless over the measles? the measles! really? WOW! Try some new reading material for a change. SHEESH

What if our good intentions have actually created unintended consequences? The opposing view in which you are clearly ignorant of is that these diseases help up-regulate gene expression and develop the immune system. This is very important. By denying this and inoculating for every infectious disease you have a bunch of weak immune systems that have never been stress tested. Then when cancer develops or the Flu the immune system has FAKE immunity focused on the memory side of the immune system and doesn't respond efficiently. Don't you understand that? Its like picking up a dumbbell in the gym for the first time. your muscles are weak. This is OUR VIEW and its never ever been fully studied. Is it any wonder why we have so much chronic illness? nope it makes perfect sense actually

Vaccines permanently alter the immune system,creating imbalances we don't fully understand. We should be looking at providing optimal nutritional support for the natural innate immune system that we are born with and study that perspective instead of trying to artificially control the immune system with chemical cluster bombs.

WE DONT NEED MORE CHEMICALS IN OUR BODIES WE NEED LESS

I have said it before if you are going to dismiss the parents who watched their child get injured you have really dug in your heels on the wrong side of the debate. You must be a proud Romney republican siding with Billion Dollar Corporations. feel better now

Also if you believe the Govt should vaccinate everyone and have dominion over our bodies, what else are you ok with in the cause if the greater good?

Deb, I was specifically talking about parents with a personal belief exemption. Those people aren't poor, and
deserve all the mockery and fines we can heap on 'em. (The fines will also be regulated by income level, so poor people who fell into the movement will not be fined but will have to have a doctor talk with them and show them pictures of kids with bad cases of VPDs)
I have a few ideas to help parents that aren't anti-vaxx but have missed shots. A few things can be done to help undervaccinated kids. First of all, have the parents sign an 'intent to vaccinate' form that the doctor keeps on file. These parents are bumped up to the head of the line every time they come in with the kid or seek medical help for themselves. They also should get gift cards to local stores.
They get automated alerts when clinics are set up and reminders of which shots the kids still need. And of course, they get invited to an annual party at their pediatricians's practice. So parents of undervaccinated kids get all the carrots, but straight-up anti-vaxxers get the stick.

"“They” still continue to blame Thimerosal because of the Flu vaccine, despite the fact that uptake for that particular vaccine is substantially lower than most other vaccines…" vaxx nutter

Well actually autistic kids get marked for 'extra help' and are recommended to have the flu vaccine because they are usually in residential care and that means you are stuffed for being forced to have it. They use all sorts of appeals to emotion to force the parents to submit.

You gotta do better than play the crank card with JFK, he knows more about the subject than your undergrad education could even appeal too. Vaccine damage denial is an illness and totally anti science.

"They get the shot, that night they have a fever of 103, they go to sleep and three months later their brain is gone," Kennedy, 61, said, reported the Sacramento Bee. "This is a holocaust, what this is doing to our country."

The more alarmist, contrary story of an out-of-control medical establishment covering up the “truth” – that vaccinations are responsible for an alarming spike in children diagnosed with autism – is the view of a tiny minority, perhaps 5% of the population.

Johnny: "Well actually autistic kids get marked for ‘extra help’ and are recommended to have the flu vaccine because they are usually in residential care and that means you are stuffed for being forced to have it."

Nope. Autistic children are undervaccinated since most of them reside with their parents. However, you apparently just arrived from the 1950s and are therefore confused.

LizDitz: I think it's 20%, myself. The media tends to underestimate some trends.

Johnny@59: You do know that causes come before effects, don’t you? Or are you too stupid to understand how linear time functions?

Well, dad was originally talking about the three brothers. He sorta liked JFK, he didn't have anything against RFJ, but didn't think he was half the man as JFK, and thought Ted was an alcoholic horndog.

Narad: Gonzalez's undergrad English degree is from Brown, his "post grad education" from Columbia University was in lieu of pre med courses in order for him to gain entry into Cornell Medical School.

He claims he only had two vaccines during his entire life time (tetanus and polio), yet he is 67 years old. Tetanus-diphtheria and pertussis vaccines were combined during 1949, just in time for him to have received the triple antigen vaccines during his infant years and for school entry; along with smallpox vaccine. He would have had measles-mumps-rubella and varicella diseases in early childhood. I don't think he has any current hospital affiliations.

It's very appropriate that the anti-vaxxers are using Gonzalez's letter, because so many of them reject proven treatments for diseases and disorders...opting for the junk science snake oil salesmen.

He sorta liked JFK, he didn’t have anything against RFJ, but didn’t think he was half the man as JFK, and thought Ted was an alcoholic horndog.

I mean, weren't they all alcoholic horndogs, really? It's just that Teddy lived long enough for it to begin to come off a little unseemly.

Re: "The Healthy Home Economist": It is a vile den of scum and quackery, one that a lot of otherwise intelligent hippie types seem to fall for, sadly. I have grown to hate it due to the frequency with which its articles are uncritically posted on my Facebook feed. Although it is responsible for introducing me to Stephanie Seneff, I suppose, which has provided some quality entertainment.

and imagine how confusing it is for me... I look at the list of comments, and wonder if I posted under the influence. But then I read the post, and realize that there isn't enough alcohol to kill enough brain cells to make me think that that other one makes sense.

Looks like Theo is the only Critical Thinker in this bunch! The rest of you are nothing but insulting and narrow minded! If you want to follow the herd off the cliff, by all means, do so! Some of choose not to...Thank you very much.

What if our good intentions have actually created unintended consequences?

Then we'd see evidence that the actions we undertook with good intentions caused unintended unintended consequences. With respect to routine childhood vaccination, we would see evidence demonstrating the risk associated with being vaccinated exceeded the risk associated with remaining vunerable to the infectious diseases they protect against. Needless to say, we don't.

The opposing view in which you are clearly ignorant of is that these diseases help up-regulate gene expression and develop the immune system. This is very important. By denying this and inoculating for every infectious disease you have a bunch of weak immune systems that have never been stress tested.

Citations needed, Theo: exactly what evidence demonstrates routine childhood vaccination results in individuals developing weaker immune systems than they would develop if they remained vulnerable to infectious diseases? Be specific.

Its like picking up a dumbbell in the gym for the first time. your muscles are weak. This is OUR VIEW and its never ever been fully studied.

Are you now explicitly admitting there isn't a sufficient and robust body of evidence which supports your view, because it hasn't been fully studied?

Citations needed: exactly what immune system imbalances does vaccination create, and what evidence demonstrates those imbalances to be harmful? Be specific.

I have said it before if you are going to dismiss the parents who watched their child get injured you have really dug in your heels on the wrong side of the debate.

What injuries have those parents seen their children to suffer, and--this is the critical part--how have they factually established the injuries they believe they're chidlren suffered actually were caused by the vaccines they received?

It is, I trust, on some basis other than a post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy...

Deb: The problem with PBEs is that they can be used by parents whose children have not received one or more vaccines which are required for school entry. IMO, many of these parents do not realize the serious consequences for their children and other children and adults who actually have valid medical contraindications and for infants too young to have received their primary series of vaccines.

Public Health Clinics are sited in areas which have populations which are uninsured, under-insured and which have Medicaid insurance. These individuals receive complete vaccines through the VFC (Vaccines for Children) program:

I'd had to agree with Liz because I can't imagine it being much higher overall altho' I realise that in isolated places OF COURSE it may be 10-20% or so ( I'm thinking of figures of Marin Cy and LA environs as well as Orac's map of Michigan, parts of London and Swansea).

Here's what leads me to figure this way:
- overall exemptions rates by state appear to be in the low single digits
- Mnookin showed selective vaccination ( around 10%) but non-vaccination at around 1%
- popular anti-vax websites have difficulty scrounging up facebook figures beyond 10-30+K ( respectively AoA, ThinkingMoms/ others are redundancy incarnate like The Canary Party, Health Choice) the highest I've seen is about 50K ( The Vaccine Machine).
I wouldn't be surprised if the diehards in these groups include every family member ( and possibly pets) to inflate these numbers.

There WAS an NPR poll a few years ago that showed that younger people/ parents with children under 18 were more 'concerned' about vaccines and that perhaps 20% or so had 'questions' IIRC.

Theo - You're an idiot. I don't usually engage trolls but you have steamed me today. Yes, I fear measles. It kills children every day on this planet. Smart scientists figured out a way to prevent that from happening and idiots like you want to bring it back. Why? So the US can once again enjoy burying a many small children as some third world countries still unfortunately do? Don't you wonder why these parents in these countries line up for hours or days to get their kids vaccinated? Because they want them to live. Because they've watched children suffer and die. It's really easy to climb up on your high horse and think well that won't happen to my kids and I really don't give a damn about anybody else's. But it could be your kids. Even if they didn't die, measles is a miserable illness with numerous severe complications. Do you want to sit by a hospital bed and watch your child suffer? You must not be a parent if you think that would be ok. It shreds my soul to watch my child have a cold. Sitting helplessly while he battled an illness that severe would be unbearable. You anti-vax types also whine on and on about chronic diseases. You have nothing to prove it. Nothing at all. Allergies? We've always had allergies. Always. Plus do you think the fact that we have royally screwed up the climate over the last several decades might have changed things enough to make allergies a little worse? If you're talking about all the fake diagnoses you can get by walking into a naturopath office (candida overgrowth, adrenal fatigue, multi-chemical sensitivity, gluten 'intolerance') there isn't a shred of evidence any of that stuff exists. It's a way to take someone who is essentially worried well and turn them into a chronic patient always good for a consult, bunches of lab tests, and loads of supplements. All provided by the happy naturopath who is laughing all the way to the bank. Why don't you go touring some areas of the world where they still battle these horrible illnesses and watch some children suffering then come back and pronounce vaccinations 'useless'.

No, no, you don't understand. It's not the number of molecules he's concerned about. It's the number of different kinds of molecules he's concerned about. That means that things like fruits and vegetables with their enormous diversity of proteins and metabolic products are right out.

Obviously the ideal diet for THEO is pure HFCS with an appropriate amount of the most essential vitamins mixed in, with each vitamer being represented by only one form. It's the perfect cure for molecular diversity.

Well, there was the incident where "Theo" cut-and-pasted an Iliya comment in its entirety, so if he's not Iliya, he thinks Iliya's really sharp and worthy of plagiarizing, which says something.

I'll grant you that he lacks the Random Capitalization and all-caps NUTRITION of Iliya, but otherwise the writing is pretty similar, including frequent use of "give me a break" and seeming not to understand how moderation works. (Okay, that second one is pretty common.)

But but Gonzalez is Ivy-league educated!! And one of his teachers was an Important Person! And every article he writes for GreenMedInfo begins by mentioning both these credentials!
I see he has his own unique Alternative-Oncology* theory of the Cause of All Cancer, and his own not-so-unique treatment (i.e. Gerson therapy again, at two removes, as modified by another quack).

* Calls himself an oncologist but has omitted the "training" or "board certification" parts.

herr doktor bimler: Old Nick has a history of one year training in Internal Medicine, one year training in Pediatrics and six month training in Immunology, which, of course, does not qualify him for "board certification" in any field.

The NYS Doctors' Profile website does not provide information about actions by the NYS physicians' licensing board which are more than 10 years old....for the specific charges and sanctioning of Old Nick...we have the OPMC website:

Well, there are so many coffee-enema cancer cranks, they all blur together. And it did not immediately occur to me that even antivax loons calling themselves "Healthy Home Economist" would think they could improve their credibility by citing that low-life fraud.

I used to jib at any website or organization with "Freedom" or "Patriot" in the title, suspecting that these had little to do with either. I'm beginning to feel the same way about "Healthy" (not to mention "Holistic").

"Looks like Theo is the only Critical Thinker in this bunch! The rest of you are nothing but insulting and narrow minded! If you want to follow the herd off the cliff, by all means, do so! Some of choose not to…Thank you very much."

Very funny. You capture the hypocrisy of the antivaxxer very well. Thanks.

This article and many of your comments fail to encompass the diversity of individuals that are concerned about the effects of vaccines on their children's body. As parents, we all have the right to question the toxicity level of the environment, the food, the medicine that we are exposed to. We do this everyday for workers all across the country. We make sure their health and safety is protected. Why should we be any less vigilant about our children and vaccines? They are not perfect and they are not fool-proof. Who you all call "Anti-Vaxxers" are a very diverse group of people from those that do not vaccinate at all to those that vaccinate completely such as myself - but very carefully - ensuring that vaccines are spaced out and that my child's reaction to each is not adverse. This is a right that we all have as human beings - to be vigilant over our own bodies and the bodies of our children. The bills all across the nation take this away. The American Association of Physicians and Surgeons oppose it because it takes informed consent away - this is the real issue, regardless of whether you are pro or anti vaccine. It does not matter.

Hilarious given the efforts of the Rotarians to eliminated polio. Some years ago, on CKUA (best radio on the planet) on Tin Roof Radio/ world Spinning or whatever Lark Clark called her world music show, she interviewed a guy from Rotary International about their vaccination program in Africa. He described how as the programs boat went up the river, people would paddle out in dugout canoes as fast as they could to meet the boat and get their children vaccinated. They lived in a situation that was far less forgiving of stupidity than that of the well-off antivaxxer's.

The opposing view in which you are clearly ignorant of is that these diseases help up-regulate gene expression and develop the immune system. This is very important. By denying this and inoculating for every infectious disease you have a bunch of weak immune systems that have never been stress tested.

I'm always intrigued by the claims that we are doing our children an injustice by not allowing them to go through what used to be ubiquitous illnesses. I have even seen it claimed that we have a symbiotic relationship with measles (was that Dr. Jay?). This strikes me as being very similar to the idea that God made the Earth and all living things entirely for mankind's convenience, though I never quite understood how that works with things like Ebola and smallpox.

Remnants of this exist in the doctrine of signatures, where plants with leaves that look a bit like lungs (e.g. lungwort) are remedies for respiratory illnesses, and all the co-factors necessary for vitamin C to work effectively are present in fruits all for human benefit, of course. It's a common idea in altmed, though I don't think most people have thought it through.

I'm puzzled that the same people who are opposed to vaccines because they believe they cause such a severe immune reaction that they lead to seizures, encephalopathy, breakdown of the BBB etc., also oppose vaccine because they don't stimulate the immune system enough. It must be the wrong kind of immune stimulation I guess, though why wild measles would upregulate any genes that the vaccine strain wouldn't beats me. Even if you adhere to this belief, surely vaccines give the immune system the workout it requires but with a much lower risk of horrible complications. A foolish inconsistency is the hemoglobin of little minds I suppose (with apologies to Emerson).

As I explore vaccine safety. I come across this site occasionaly. The author obviously rabidly pro vaccine. I have never been able to finish these long winded rambling posts that knock everybody while providing any science
Note Vaccines don't cause autism, they cause brain damage.http://www.cbsnews.com/news/vaccines-autism-and-brain-damage-whats-in-a…
Here is a vary good website with over a 100 links to real science urging caution with vaccines. http://www.vaccinesaftey.blogspot.ca
In 2005 the kids had 8 different vaccines in the schedule, now in 2014 there is 14 vaccines, All with side effects. I guess you think that is good??

This article and many of your comments fail to encompass the diversity of individuals that are concerned about the effects of vaccines on their children’s body.

Oddly, I've found that a standard talking point is that the antivaccine crowd is overall "well educated" (viz., random baccalaureates) and professionally successful, as represented by waving around third-hand census-tract data.

As parents, we all have the right to question the toxicity level of the environment, the food, the medicine that we are exposed to.

I have missed the part where anyone is jeopardizing your "right to question." It is, however, unclear to me what this utterance has to do with parents per se, or how you arrive at the implication that it is an abridgement of this right to be told that you're transparently full of shіt from top to bottom.

We do this everyday for workers all across the country.

Antivaccine cranks?

We make sure their health and safety is protected. Why should we be any less vigilant about our children and vaccines?

Let me get this straight: You think that a bureaucracy modeled after OSHA would be superior to the FDA?

This is a right that we all have as human beings – to be vigilant over our own bodies and the bodies of our children. The bills all across the nation take this away.

Please demonstrate the part where individuals have the "right ... as human beings" to have law provide an overarching exemption for whatever somebody pulls out of their ass.

Good job ORAC! You’ve come a good ways with the public speaking from your earliest effort in Chicago. My guest was impressed and swears he’s giving up coffee enemas--which is what one needed at the conference that DIDN’T ALLOW COFFEE IN THE AUDITORIUM--what were they thinking!

I think that the anti-vaccine contingent is motivated by deep emotional issues rather than by good sense : many of them may derive their identity and social life from their beliefs and activism.. They’re caught up in it .

I think that you have hit upon the core issue. Many chasms divide our body politic, and one of the big ones is scientist/activist: the disciplined search for reliable knowledge simply does not fit well with the determination to win your political point at any cost and by any means expedient. Activism can be a great and good thing, in fact we need more and better activists if we are to fix our political difficulties, but when activism becomes unmoored it gives us antivaxxers and Elwiors and Seralinis. Oh my!

I’m puzzled that the same people who are opposed to vaccines because they believe they cause such a severe immune reaction that they lead to seizures, encephalopathy, breakdown of the BBB etc., also oppose vaccine because they don’t stimulate the immune system enough.

I was thinking about this, too. They want their cake and eat it too.
It sounds like petulant children picking a tantrum. "It tastes bad and it doesn't do anything anyway ".

As an aside, from one of our troll:

JFK [...] knows more about the subject than your undergrad education could even appeal too

Anyone like JFK thinking that "vaccines do all the work" and don't "exercise" the immune system is a fool with no idea about how the immune system and vaccines really work.

Vaccines do exercise the immune system, that's their whole point. And cranks like JFK like conveniently forget that the point of being immune to a bug is that future encounters with this bug are going to deal with in a mostly asymptomatic manner - i.e. silently.
In other words, because you immune system hasn't done a 42-km marathon in front of cameras does't mean it's not doing 20 laps every now and then in the local stadium.

@ Narad

Let me get this straight: You think that a bureaucracy modeled after OSHA would be superior to the FDA?

I think anti-vaxxer is very confused.
What it wants is a OSHA-like body which will tell us NOT to take steps to improve our security.
(and I do hope with OSHA would be for vaccination)

New OSHA guidelines, according to anti-vaxxer:

"No vaccines because of [unproven] nefarious side-effects (and just hold your breath to avoid catching measles or the flu)"

"I’m puzzled that the same people who are opposed to vaccines because they believe they cause such a severe immune reaction that they lead to seizures, encephalopathy, breakdown of the BBB etc., also oppose vaccine because they don’t stimulate the immune system enough." confused.com

It is not about stimulation or not. Basically the immune system is better off making its own choices about what to defend or support. The problem with vaccination and co is that they arrogantly think they can fiddle with this defence mechanism and make better choices. 800 cases of narcolepsy after a futile flu vaccine is a good example of vaccine disaster. There are too many more to list really, the only validating organs are written by the people who make the vaccines, hiding behind a cloak of peer review. It's Russia all over and desk top stats.

" And cranks like JFK like conveniently forget that the point of being immune to a bug is that future encounters with this bug are going to deal with in a mostly asymptomatic manner " Hell on paper

You really are full of all sorts of anecdotes. The idea that medical science can 'predict' what's coming - one minute you are for predictions and then against soothsayers? which is it. I mean flu vaccine is a spectacular example of failed medical science predictions - what is it - 3% success this year - I mean come on - if homeopathy claimed 3% success - LOL maybe Mr Offitt and co should get a crystal ball - might improve the ratings

"I think that the pro -vaccine contingent is motivated by deep emotional issues rather than by good sense : many of them may derive their identity and social life from their beliefs and activism.. They’re caught up in it . Robert Bull

Well there is a lot of pro vaccine sickness here, even when vaccine failure is happening on a daily basis, all the provax can do is open the pubmed gospel and quote. Pity is not many people are feeling that good about 'authority' after the world banking crisis and the cock up in the middle East - all orchestrated by experts and highly 'trained' people.

This monkey on a stick blog is full of people who need committing to one of their institutions. It is why no one really bothers voting anymore - who wants a medical scientist to map out their life with dodgy predictions and doomsday antibiotic looming disasters? Better to eat properly, avoid the tv, and ignore medical predictions.

Yep. Even if Philip Hills were not running trolling science blogs under a range of assumed identities, even if he were not ripping people off for his profession, he would still be a sh1tweasel of the first order for
1. Boasting of his participation in his local Rotarian project to support polio-vaccination efforts; while
2. Using his FB account to attack and undermine that project.

Anyone with any vestige of integrity would have dealt with the contradiction by resigning from the Rotary movement, but not our chav friend!

Medical soothsaying is popular. Here is a typical doomsday looming that is guaranteed to get the non believer queuing up for snake oil pills a the docky. Also in this picture you can see Narad's honerable member proudly showing how hard/or not he has been at work, chaffing at the antis. Give that boy a pat on the head, not the lower one of course.

“I think that the pro -vaccine contingent is motivated by deep emotional issues rather than by good sense : many of them may derive their identity and social life from their beliefs and activism.. They’re caught up in it . Robert Bull

You really need to work harder at pretending you aren't in the UK. Deliberately misspelling your own name just isn't cutting it.

It is not about stimulation or not. Basically the immune system is better off making its own choices about what to defend or support. The problem with vaccination and co is that they arrogantly think they can fiddle with this defence mechanism and make better choices.

How does the immune system choose what pathogens to be exposed to? If it can make its own choices about whether or not to respond to a pathogen, why can't it do so when exposed to a vaccine?

800 cases of narcolepsy after a futile flu vaccine is a good example of vaccine disaster.

a) It isn't 800 cases, as you well know having been informed of this multiple times.
b) How was a vaccine that prevented an estimated 700,000–1,500,000 clinical cases, 4,000–10,000 hospitalizations, and 200–500 deaths in the US alone in any way "futile"?

There are too many more to list really, the only validating organs are written by the people who make the vaccines, hiding behind a cloak of peer review.

As has been pointed out to you, with specific examples, multiple times, much of the vaccine safety and efficacy literature is not industry funded. Remember that "industry funded research" that turned out to have been funded by the American Association of Health Plans? You never did explain why health insurers would support a vaccine that made their customers sick thus costing them money.

It’s Russia all over and desk top stats.

So if all the evidence contradicts your delusions it's because the Truth has been suppressed. You could make up any batsh!t crazy BS and make the same claim. Oh wait, you already did.

The idea that medical science can ‘predict’ what’s coming – one minute you are for predictions and then against soothsayers? which is it.

Your lack of understanding is painful to watch.

I mean flu vaccine is a spectacular example of failed medical science predictions – what is it – 3% success this year – I mean come on – if homeopathy claimed 3% success – LOL maybe Mr Offitt and co should get a crystal ball – might improve the ratings

We have had this conversation before, and you are still wrong.
a) The influenza vaccine was about 19% effective for the 2014/15 season and is usually considerably more effective.
b) If homeopathy could demonstrate a replicable 3% reduction in an objective illness like influenza there would be a scientific revolution.
c) If you have a better method of predicting which influenza viruses will be circulating many months in advance, do please share.

Well there is a lot of pro vaccine sickness here, even when vaccine failure is happening on a daily basis, all the provax can do is open the pubmed gospel and quote.

You still don't understand what PubMed is?

Pity is not many people are feeling that good about ‘authority’ after the world banking crisis and the cock up in the middle East – all orchestrated by experts and highly ‘trained’ people.

Where is the mountain of evidence that told us bank deregulation and invading Iraq and Afghanistan would lead to good outcomes?

This monkey on a stick blog is full of people who need committing to one of their institutions.

Just a handful really, with you at the top of the list.

It is why no one really bothers voting anymore – who wants a medical scientist to map out their life with dodgy predictions and doomsday antibiotic looming disasters? Better to eat properly, avoid the tv, and ignore medical predictions.

That way you can go back to an average lifespan of 40 years and one in ten children dying before their first birthday. BTW, if you are one of those people claiming that vitamin D3 will prevent influenza you are sorely mistaken.

God, you lot don’t get up at the weekend, too many vaccines and prescriptions.

There are these things called time zones that mean it is a different time in different parts of the world, so when it is early in the morning in Essex, it's the middle of the night in the US. I know it's a hard concept for you to grasp, like herd immunity and whether to put on your trousers or underpants first.

"1st encounter, immune system memorizes shape of attacker.
2nd encounter, immune system mounts faster and more accurate response." Hell with his pants down

Yes but only 2% of 'immunity' is acquired, the rest is all fever, vomiting, diarrhea, sweating all the things the medics love to suppress. The 98% depends on good nutrition, something you seem to know little of and other environmental factors.

It makes no sense to try and interfere with the 2%, especially when 3% 'success' and 800 cases of narcolepsy are the result of fafffing with flu.

You can choose what you want to see, but that doesn't make you right. Have an antibiotic and think about it. Remember proper doctors have created antibiotic resistance because of their over zealous use of the magik.

Has: Why not just fine anti-vaxxers till they shriek? Most of ‘em are good for it.

Because the goal is not to punish some people for making different choices, it's to ensure everyone in our society - including those who choose not to vaccinate - pays their fair share for the benefits that society gives in return.

Parents who choose to vaccinate pay their way by accepting a very small risk (maybe one in a million) of adverse effects. Pharma pays its way by maintaining an insurance fund to compensate those who suffer genuine vaccine injury.

Right now the anti-vaxxers refuse to pay their way, and scream blue murder at anyone who even suggests that they should. Society already grants them the right not to vaccinate, but that's not enough for these special flowers: they insist it's their Absolute Right to receive all the benefits and privileges that everyone else has already paid for, without doing a damn thing in return. As others have said, narcissism runs rampant amongst anti-vaxxers, and that's something that cannot be fixed; it can only be contained so that its toxic effects don't spill onto anyone else.

Penalizing anti-vaxxers with fines, threats of CPS intervention, etc. will only make martyrs out of them, giving movement anti-vaxxers all the justification they need to be even more aggressive, manipulative, and downright vile. Worse, it'll also generate sympathy amongst casual fencesitters and every "X Rights" ideologue in the land, and give every scummy politician and lawer a perfect cause on which to erect their own soapboxes, by confirming the whole "Wrongthinking Will Be Punished" that they love to project onto everyone but themselves.

Conversely, a strategy more akin to taxation (while it'll still be despised by ideologues, of course) keeps the rest of us on the moral high ground: we're not punishing them for being different to us, we're only asking that they pay their fair share of the bill, just they'd expect us to do too.

And should they still refuse to cough up (as I expect they will), we can call them out as the bunch of parasitc freeloading "Prius Welfare Queens" that they really are, thereby allowing the social shaming and ostracization to get properly underway. (i.e. The time-tested solution by which society's members deal directly with other members piss them off.)

Still won't move the hardcore believers, of course, but it'll ensure they're starved of the public attention and any popular sympathy that they so desperately crave on a personal level, and are seriously dependent on to maintain the strength of numbers of their movement as a whole.

Like I say, you'll never truly eliminate anti-vax, because it's an irrational belief system, aka "religion", and no-one ever wins against that. But you can turn it into a self-limiting condition if you play your cards right.

...

TL;DR: Don't fight the anti-vax minority directly. Instead, take the "everyone pays a fair share" message to the vast majority of society who doesn't have such unchallengable ideological burrs up their ass. It's extremely easy to draw a straight line from public vaccination rates to hospitalization, injury, and death rates due to vaccine-preventable diseases that everyone can understand. It's also extremely easy to identify public schools as a major vector by which many diseases spread (just ask any parent with school-age kids). Draw this picture for everyone to see, and let popular opinion and dislike for cheaters do the rest of the work.

[citation needed] for your claims, because it flies in the face of established science.

Indeed. Much like shit from a fan.

Still, #107 does nicely illustrate the popular "Don't Trample Our Rights" narrative that anti-vaxxers and other ideologues do so love to play, because it makes them appear as the wronged party here.

Any critic dumb enough to play in that game is scoring only home goals; that's how ridiculously rigged it is. What's needed is to kick out that mendaciously self-serving "Rights Rights Rights Rights" narrative** with one that states clearly what all of these Rights actually are: Benefits received in return for Responsibilites paid.

Make this the overwhelming public narrative, and you've got the cheaters and the freeloaders by the balls.

"The very word “recover” implies finding something that was lost, as though the autistic child is not the parents’ real child but the real child can be “recovered” with the appropriate quack treatments."

MjD's response,

We've seen a dramatic increase in U.S. Patents directed at treatments for Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Narad: "Oddly, I’ve found that a standard talking point is that the antivaccine crowd is overall “well educated” (viz., random baccalaureates) and professionally successful, as represented by waving around third-hand census-tract data."

You forgot whiter than white bread. I think I know of maybe one African-American anti-vaxxer and a few duped Somalis. Most of that community smartened up pretty fast after the measles outbreak here. I don't think there are any Asian, Hispanic or Native American anti-vaxxers.

Has: You're assuming a lot of things, notably that anti-vaxxers can learn and that they have empathy. The unfortunate thing is that most anti-vaxxers can make the right mouth noises to masquerade as intelligent, socially adept people. Shunning will not work. And people fundamentally don't want to 'pay a fair share anymore.' The '80s pretty much killed that sentiment off in the US.

In other words, for you, natural immunity - the one acquired after getting the wild form of a bug - barely exists.
I guess all the people in history who get their childhood diseases and survived just started sweating profusely. That's why they usually never got it twice.

Would love to learn how sweating (or puking or whatever other fluid fetish you have) is good at keeping airborne viruses at bay.

Yes but only 2% of ‘immunity’ is acquired, the rest is all fever, vomiting, diarrhea, sweating all the things the medics love to suppress. The 98% depends on good nutrition, something you seem to know little of and other environmental factors.

So only well-nourished people run fevers, vomit, have diarrhea and sweat? Who knew? How come these natural elements of the immune system didn't protect the millions who died of contagious diseases before vaccines were developed? Cholera causes plenty of these symptoms but still kills 50% of untreated patients, however well-nourished.

It makes no sense to try and interfere with the 2%,

So it's better to get typhoid than to be vaccinated against it? Are you volunteering to demonstrate?

especially when 3% ‘success’ and 800 cases of narcolepsy are the result of fafffing with flu.

Frank: "Here is a vary good website with over a 100 links to real science urging caution with vaccines."

No, it is just another idiotic page of links by someone who does not know the difference between "morbidity" and "mortality"... and on and on. Tell Jan Toff that this is where the Pharma Shill Gambit was originally mocked.

California Naturopathic Doctors Association (CNDA) states that it supports immunization for the prevention of disease and the public health objective of achieving high rates of immunity to infectious disease. CNDA states that as licensed primary care doctors who can diagnose medical conditions such as anaphylaxis and immunodeficiency, reasons outlined in the CDC’s list of contraindications to common pediatric vaccinations, naturopathic doctors must also be able to sign medical waivers for vaccination, when such medical conditions exist. CNDA opposes this bill unless it is amended to include NDs as providers who can sign medical waivers for vaccination.

I think the naturopaths did something similar with AB2109 -- demanded to be one of the health care professionals who could sign off on Personal Belief Exemptions. Stand by -- think Orac covered it.

As parents, we all have the right to question the toxicity level of the environment, the food, the medicine that we are exposed to

So when you question those things, do you look to see how the experts have answered those questions? Dr. Paul Offit is one expert who's written book(s) on vaccination. And you could easily find resources with answers online. Most anti-vaccination arguments can be easily debunked.
And, are you asking the right questions?
Public health experts generally don't identify the same problems as the popular preoccupations.
It seems like people sense something wrong, but the "toxins" they focus on are not the culprit.
There's a huge amount of premature death and disability.
One culprit is food companies and restaurants, which drive the obesity epidemic by making foods that are hyperpalatable and cleverly marketing them. Dr. David Kessler wrote a book about that, The End of Overeating.

There’s one final issue with this bill. I couldn’t find it mentioned in any of the news reports anywhere and the text of the bill doesn’t reflect this change, at least not yet, but apparently an amendment was added to the bill before it got out of committee that would allow naturopaths to counsel parents on the risks and benefits of vaccines and sign the exemption form under the supervision of a licensed physician. If this is true, it’s a disaster for the bill that will provide a loophole the size of an aircraft carrier for antivaccine parents. It’s something that really needs to be stripped from the bill before it’s voted on; failure to do so will render the bill much less effective, perhaps even nearly useless.

@Frank 113:
Awards by the vaccine injury court do not necessarily represent actual vaccine injuries - just conditions that plausibly could be the result of the vaccine.
The vaccine court is set up to give plaintiffs the benefit of the doubt. They don't have to prove the problem was caused by the vaccine - just that it might have been caused by the vaccine.
The court knows what could plausibly have been caused by the vaccine from research, such as epidemiological studies.
So damages awarded by the vaccine court are not a good way of estimating actual vaccine injuries.

"Because the goal is not to punish some people for making different choices, it’s to ensure everyone in our society – including those who choose not to vaccinate – pays their fair share for the benefits that society gives in return." bull

You are punishing lots of people because of vaccine damage denial, and we are also paying for that too from the burden on society. Who says you have the right to decide that vaccination is a benefit?

What this is all about - you have a belief system and so do I and neither the twain shall meet. It just so happens that once we had a much more balanced idea in society - the public sector and the private sector. The former was funded by taxes and we all accepted for the greater good. We had a post service that worked, twice a day, the roads got repaired and water came out of the taps. The lights stayed on..........

Then the edges got blurred, the private public partnership. Since then we see piss poor service and a lot of rip off going on. The postal service wants to stop delivering and the biggest threat is to what health care may become with this influence. We see vaccine committees with conflicts of interest and this fuels the divide between vaccine fantasy and facts. Definitions of 'real evidence' held by one very biased side - a detachment from real events beyond money.

If the level of 'discussion' in Gorski world represents the pro medicate society then we are all screwed, there is nothing on offer here - no rational - just a small group of fuckwits - legends in their own lunchtimes. The saddest thing is that I thought I might learn something else but all of you are totally predictable and all parallel to the same asholes that are making really shit decisions about the way this planet is being run.

The idea that you guys might have an influence in legislating medication directives is LOL and as long as the public at large continue to know that you are never going to win, it's all ok.

Until I can be bothered to stand in dogshit again I am giving it a break for a while - and I am still not Mr Hill and never was, sorry about that - Naturopathy is bullshit too.

Has: You’re assuming a lot of things, notably that anti-vaxxers can learn and that they have empathy.

Erp, no. My whole point is that you can't change them and it's a complete waste of time trying to do so. What you need to do persuade everyone else in society that it's in their own best interests to contain the anti-vax movement's influence so it can't extend beyond itself.

And you do that by painting a great big unmissable picture that shows Joe and Jane Citizen that shows how their honest taxes* are being thieved by a bunch of dirty unpleasant freeloaders who think they're so much better than ordinary folks and so have the absolute right to leech off them. It's a message that works across all political and social strata - from left to right and bottom to top - because nobody likes a parasite, unless they're a parasite themselves. And nobody wants to be publicly declared a parasite - including the parasites themselves.

The unfortunate thing is that most anti-vaxxers can make the right mouth noises to masquerade as intelligent, socially adept people.

Sure, for maybe the first five responses. Then the crazy begins to leak out, and show them up for what they are. Honestly, if you cannot use their own behavior against them, you should not be playing Judo.

Shunning will not work. And people fundamentally don’t want to ‘pay a fair share anymore.’ The ’80s pretty much killed that sentiment off in the US.

Shunning isn't to make anti-vaxxers change their ways; it's to limit their ability to propagandize unchallenged, and should also make it harder for them to suck in the fencesitters and naive young uns who don't know better. While us spoiled self-centered westerners may have lost the abstract concept of "child death", we understand the very concrete concept of "social death" better now than ever.

As to people not wanting to pay their own fair share: damn right, and the anti-vaxxers are an absolutely classic example of that. But the one thing that everyone - up to even the biggest, self-entitled cutter - is guaranteed to despise is when other people do it. (e.g. Ask any obese, unhealthy, mobility-scootering, Medicare-sucking Tea Partier what they think of all the "Cadillac Welfare Queens" in society today to see exactly what I mean.)

Again, the goal isn't to reverse such attitudes, it's to harness and target such energies, not directly at the anti-vax people* but at the lawmakers who, given a sufficiently large and motivated voting bloc at their door, could, should, and would put through a "National Childhood Vaccine-Preventable Disease Injury Act" that guarantees elective non-vaccinators the legal right not to vaccinate† while also guaranteeing they can (and will) pay their dues in way that is fully compatible with their own deeply held beliefs; e.g. by obligating them to pay insurance into a compensation fund for disease-injured children. And if they resist: "Won't Everyone Think of the Disease-Injured CHILDREN!!!!"

(*Because, as already pointed out, picking pissing matches with anti-vaxxers themselves - though you may find it emotionally satisfying at a personal level - just leaves you soaked and stinking of urine, and then it's no surprise that nobody wants anything to do with you either.)

(† Which they already have, of course, but nothing is easier and cheaper than selling it back to them again.)

Honestly, PGP, as a (supposed) misanthrope I'd have thought you'd love nothing more to see such contemptible fools hoist by their own petard. Truly, I am disappoint!

Has : I agree with most of your points, but I still think there need to be immediate consequences for buying into anti-vax stupidity. We also should not ignore that disabled children shouldn't be in the care of people who view them as subhuman. Has anyone noticed the hypocrisy of Anne Dachel yet? Kinda funny that she jumps on RFK for saying that autistic children are missing their brains when she believes that herself.

Nobody here denies that vaccines can cause injury. What we deny are the claims that it is common.

and we are also paying for that too from the burden on society.

Given the fact that serious adverse reactions to vaccines are in the order of less than 1 per 10,000 doses given, hogwash.

Who says you have the right to decide that vaccination is a benefit?

The epidemiologists and other scientists who investigate these things give us the right to say it. Before vaccines, diseases like polio, tuberculosis, diphtheria, pertussis, measles and hepatitis killed millions worldwide every year. That doesn't include the other negative sequelae like blindness, deafness, sterility, paralysis and brain damage they can cause. When and where people are not vaccinated, they die. Cases in point, Riley Hughes of Australia, too young to be vaccinated against the pertussis that killed him, and that 18 month old child from Germany who had no underlying health conditions and hadn't been vaccinated against measles, the disease which ended his life.

Gee, Phildo, why so asshurt? Was the idea behind your suddenly running away from other threads in which you've been thoroughly made a fool of supposed to be to reset the viability of your idiotic screwups?

I was prescribed Vit D by my very SBM internist who also recommended lipitor, shingles vaccine etc.
This is what is confusing- here is another study-
Vitamin D3 and gargling for the prevention of upper respiratory tract infections: a randomized controlled trial.

Kreb#132
I was prescribed Vit D by my very SBM internist who also recommended lipitor, shingles vaccine etc.
This is what is confusing- here is another study-
Vitamin D3 and gargling for the prevention of upper respiratory tract infections: a randomized controlled trial.

Pharma pays its way by maintaining an insurance fund to compensate those who suffer genuine vaccine injury.

No, they don't. The Vaccine Injury Compensation Trust Fund is maintained by the government and funded by the excise tax on vaccines, which is paid by consumers.

The notion that "anti-vaxxers must all pay into an insurance fund that compensates the victims of vaccine-preventable diseases" is nonsensical in fiscal and implementation terms at the very least. Vaccine exemptions are implemented by the states; where does it apply? A surcharge on exemptions? How much? It can't be grossly discordant with the cost of vaccinating, so what's that going to add up to? Who's going to make the states do this? Who gets paid? What are the criteria? It's a plainly illegal entanglement of church and state to charge people for exercising a state-sanctioned right to a religious exemption, so that's out, etc.

If you’re talking about all the fake diagnoses you can get by walking into a naturopath office (candida overgrowth, adrenal fatigue, multi-chemical sensitivity, gluten ‘intolerance’) there isn’t a shred of evidence any of that stuff exists

Although more than 99% of microbiota consist of bacteria, fungi, most of which are Candida species, are also detectable in gastrointestinal sections of about 70% of healthy human adults. Dysbiosis can result from a loss of beneficial commensal bacteria and an overgrowth of fungi. Candida infection can induce production of inflammatory mediators by host cells. Candida also produces ligands for pattern recognition receptors (PRRs), including β-glucans, chitin, mannans, β- (1,2)-linked oligomannosides and fungal nucleic acids, which stimulate innate immune responses. In addition, Candida produces pro-inflammatory substances such as alcohol and prostaglandin (PGE2). Several studies have suggested that gut fungi can influence inflammatory disorders such as inflammatory bowel disease or allergic airway inflammation.

That doesn't imply that naturopaths do better than chance at diagnosing people with Candida overgrowth (maybe some do). Or that they're right about the problems they associate with Candida overgrowth.
As for gluten intolerance, of course there's celiac disease, an autoimmune disease triggered by the ingestion of gluten grains. And non-celiac gluten/wheat sensitivity.

You do realize that this article is nothing more then cheap, boring propaganda. At least you could have tried to write something clever. The problem with idiots like you is that you go too far. Proclaiming that vaccines are safe and effective and only rarely does anyone have a bad reaction, is an easily proven lie. The corrupt usurpation of the 7th Amendment, commonly called the Vaccine Court has paid out nearly 3 billion in damages and that is the tip of the iceberg. This fake court does not have a judge or jury and is decided in favor of drug manufacturers for the most part. Let us not forget that Autism is not the only danger. Millions and millions of children have their immune system damaged and many more are suffering from allergies, diabetes and neurological damage.
Vaccine Court admitted that vaccines caused Hannah Pauling's Autism. Here is her mother's testimony. "I am here today because HHS agreed that Hannah's receipt nine vaccines in one day triggered her autism. You can now switch semantics, anyway you want but Hannah does have autism and the vaccines triggered it. She also has mitochondrial dysfunction...
Mitochondrial autism is not rare, and it can be triggered by vaccines. We know that the mitochondria act like little batteries in our cells to produce energy that is critical for normal function. We also know during the first two years of a child's life their brain development is also critical. They're developing language acquisition, sensory motor skills, and social adaptation.
When a child has a mitochondrial dysfunction any trigger that requires a level of energy that the mitochondrial cannot produce, including vaccines, can put them at risk for brain injury and regression. In Hannah's case we know it' was the vaccines. There‘s also a problem here, and Hanna's case it not rare.
There is a study out, and most of you know about it, from Portugal that shows that it could be up to 7.2 percent. There's other studies that have not been published yet that could be as high as 20 percent." Are you at least concerned that children with mitochondrial dysfunction should be identified and not vaccinated?
You look the other way at the cozy relationship between Big Pharma, politicians who receive millions from drug manufacturers, and the revolving door between them and the CDC and FDA. Former head of the CDC, Julie Gerberding, is now the head of the Merck Vaccine Division. The government is having a dirty little affair with the drug industry. They share ownership of patents and assumed their liability. When they finally have to pay up for the 1.2 million kids with Autism it will cost trillions. It is the reason for the big lie.
Then you throw around the claim that "science" is pro vaccine. Is it "science" when the drug companies have their ghost writers write for peer reviewed medical journals? Is it "science" when the FDA hides the adverse reactions from drug trials? Is it "science" when the bible for the provaxers is the corrupt "Danish Study"? The CDC paid for the Danish Study, Keep in mind, the CDC is part of a government who wants to keep a lid on vaccine payouts. It is a conflict of interest for the CDC to pay for a drug study when they have a vested interest in the outcome. Trillions are at stake. It was 8 to 10 million study. One researcher, Thorsen, took a million and another million disappeared. Do you think that his monetary fraud goes to his credibility? It certainly would in a court of law. By the way, whoever took the other million did not get caught yet, so that puts a dark cloud over the whole study. The other million may very well be the payoff for the desired result. So there is your “science”. I have yet to see a study that supposedly debunks the Autism / vaccine claim that is not tainted by a conflict of interest.
It is not enough to make the false claim that Autism is not caused by vaccines, you then pretend that anyone who is the least bit concerned about the 1.2 million children diagnosed with ASD are just uneducated whack jobs and it is indisputable that vaccines are safe and effective. You have become transparently biased and irrational. You create what is called the boomerang effect and loose ground. Thank you for being such a transparent fuck and bringing people to the side of the truth.

I was prescribed Vit D by my very SBM internist who also recommended lipitor, shingles vaccine etc.

Prescribing vitamin D is entirely science-based if a person is deficient. Vitamin D deficiency can lead to various health problems, no one is denying that; I take D3 a couple of times a week myself in the winter since I live in a country with little sunshine so it may help and is unlikely to do any harm. What I am skeptical of are claims that vitamin D will prevent URTIs in general and influenza in particular.

This is what is confusing- here is another study- Vitamin D3 and gargling for the prevention of upper respiratory tract infections: a randomized controlled trial.

The results are somewhat underwhelming. There was no significant reduction in the number of imputed URTIs, in the number of complete case URTIs, in symptom severity, or in symptom duration in those given vitamin D. The number of laboratory confirmed URTIs was slightly lower in those given vitamin D and statistically significant, as was the lower viral load though that was barely statistically significant.

In other words the vitamin D had no clinically significant effects. Those taking vitamin D still got almost as many URTIs, the symptoms were of about the same severity, and they lasted only 0.2 of a day less than in those taking a placebo. Having a lower viral load isn't much comfort if you feel just as lousy for just as long, is it?

This systematic review and metaanalysis found a possible effect, larger in those taking a daily dose rather than at longer intervals, but they pointed out large heterogeneity in the studies (poor agreement) and possible publication bias (studies finding a positive result may be more likely to have been published). I remain unconvinced either way, but I think the claims that taking vitamin D is a substitute for the influenza vaccine are clearly hyperbole. I'll stick with both.

Reluctant though I am to argue with Kerry Kolsch's voices, that itself is an indication that she has not actually read any of the research she is blathering about. She may not even be aware that Denmark is not part of the US, and does not come under CDC jurisdiction, and is quite capable of paying for its own research.

The activities of the Danish Epidemiology Science Centre and the National Centre for Register-Based Research are funded by a grant from the Danish National Research foundation. This study was supported by the Stanley Medical Research Institute. No funding sources were involved in the study design.

I am not seeing "CDC" in any of those sources of funds, though of course I do not have access to the same leprechaun-based channels of information as Ms Kolsch.

Kerry: "Then you throw around the claim that “science” is pro vaccine. Is it “science” when the drug companies have their ghost writers write for peer reviewed medical journals?"

Which studies documenting the safety and efficacy of vaccines do you claim are ghost written?

Since you're trying to cast scientific studies in general as false and corrupt, you should be consistent and not try to invoke such studies (including an unnamed one "from Portugal" and various other unspecified, unpublished studies) to support your own views.

.....parents seeking a religious exception would need to be registered with their church or similar organisation.

"That's the only basis upon which you can have a religious exception, and there are no mainstream religions that have such objections registered so this would apply to a very, very small proportion of people"

In a rare outbreak of common sense, no mainstream Australian politician appears to support the antivax position.

I see from her Disqus comments that Kerry Kolsch is barking. It does not matter what contents are listed; she KNOWS that vaccines contain thimerosal because THE VOICES HAVE TOLD HER SO.

I dunno, she seems more like a garden-variety lying a**hole to me. She's the one who's constantly calling people insane, lunatics, asking if they're off their meds, etc. I suppose it could be projection, but I suspect her shtick would be more interesting if there were any actual madness involved.

Just imagine my disappointment, hdb, when I scrolled through some of her screeds looking for mentions of leprechauns and did not find one single leprechaun hiding in there. She does seem to be a big fan of Adam Lambert, though, which speaks volumes.

Over the past few weeks, I notice an increase in the average daily level of hysteria emanating from AoA and TMR as well as PRN and Natural News. They must truly be frightened the public may be getting more worried about VPDs than whatever fears that they can inculcate about vaccine 'safety'.

I was quite struck by Kennedy blathering on about how the media will not cover anti-vaccine stories and whatever the so-called whistleblower deems worthy of attention. He sounds just like PRN and Natural News.

Actually, that focus upon the 'shady' media and its reluctance to investigate governmental malfeasance and its collusion with corrupt industry is the justification for these alternative media outlets existence- the entire scurvy lot of them.
They bring you the news that the media is afraid to report.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:
woo and conspiracies fit together hand-in-glove- alties need to explain why their brilliant theories and research are the object of ridicule, rejection and scorn rather than being the state of the art in medicine. It must all be a plot against them.

That said, Denice, in the political realm the mainstream media is often extraordinarily lazy; also, in order to preserve their insider status they have to act as if, say, the lunatics of the far right are actually rational actors worth listening to. It's just so easy to write stories about political horse-races, without bothering to go back and check whether the assertions of one side or another are actually, uh, true.

Charles Pierce at Esquire calls out this kind of stuff frequently, in recurrrent posts entitled "Things in Politico that make me want to guzzle antifreeze, part the infinity", which he always ends with "Bartender, make mine a double Prestone, and see what the pundits in the back room are having."

Unfortunately, alt media creatures will point to that weakness or sloppiness that is TRUE to support their own claims that the media can produce nothing of value, its reporters are all hacks, that the news is fixed, that nothing is believable or real so THEREFORE listen to their tripe.

Which is entirely reminiscent of what they do to research data- if 60 mg of vitamin C will keep off scurvy then 20000 mg will cure cancer.

I dunno, she seems more like a garden-variety lying a**hole to me. She’s the one who’s constantly calling people insane, lunatics, asking if they’re off their meds, etc. I suppose it could be projection, but I suspect her shtick would be more interesting if there were any actual madness involved.

I just can't see what the lying and bullsh1t are intended to achieve, other than to dominate comment threads by the frequency and length of her comments. Perhaps her ambition is to become a big fish within the Antivaxx pool. She certainly isn't concerned with changing anyone's mind.

Kolsch has two main arguments / claims:

(1). Thimerosal was not actually taken out of vaccines, because the CDC and FDA only oblige vaccine manufacturers to list what is added at the time of packaging; manufacturers have a Double Secret Probation waiver to use Thimerosal in the production so they don't have to list it. That's why autism rates didn't change after the putative removal of thimerosal.

I am not expecting to see documentation for this waiver any time soon, what with the unlikelihood of anyone wanting to pour a powerful ethyl-mercury-based disinfectant into a live cell culture.

2. The studies showing no change in autism rates after the putative removal of thimerosal -- results you would expect, given (1) -- are CORRUPT AND UNTRUSTWORTHY (because CDC and Thorsen and $1 million).

you should be consistent and not try to invoke such studies (including an unnamed one “from Portugal” and various other unspecified, unpublished studies)

DB, you have misread Kolsch's eccentric form of attribution.

There is a study out, and most of you know about it, from Portugal that shows that it could be up to 7.2 percent. There’s other studies that have not been published yet that could be as high as 20 percent

-- is part of Terry Poling's submission to the Vaccine Safety Working Group (of the National Vaccine Advisory Committee) at a 2008 meeting.http://archive.hhs.gov/nvpo/nvac/transcript_apr08.html
The Gazoogle informs me that the transcript of that meeting are echoed at Whale.to and at "healing-arts.org", either of which could be Kolsch's source.

Kolsch conflates VSWG with the Vaccine Court, and reckons that a submission to the former is the same as the latter "admitting that vaccines caused Hannah Pauling’s Autism",* because her mind has slipped the surly bonds of rationality

The study in question is Oliviera &c (2005)
ht_tp://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=282214

-- which found mitochondrial disorders in 5 autistic children out of a sample of 69. Poling was also aware of the same authors' 2007 study in which they corrected for some errors and reduced their estimate to 4.2%.

So vaccines have monkey kidney cells and bovine serum and assorted culture media added at packaging time?! Or do the manufacturers list those things, even though they aren't obliged to, because they think it will give them cred with foodies or some such?

Kerry Kolsch #165, this may be worth exploring though I feel it may be prudent to monitor and ensure an ample supply of phosphorous which could potentially be depleated with rapid, induced ATP production.

It would be great if FDA could explain complex biology, chemistry, and biochemistry to the public at about the desired sixth through eighth grade reading level, but, sadly, that reading level (which, if you understand what "eighth grade" reading level" represents, is rather depressing) doesn't actually allow explanation of complex biology, chemistry, and biochemistry. Those who understand the multiple and extensive physical and chemical purification steps involved in vaccine production also understand much that cannot be conveyed at such a low level of understanding.

I don't think reading ability is a big barrier for a lot of the anti-vax set. Lots that I have run across, in comment threads like this one, have university degrees. I believe that lilady frequently crosses swords with one that has a PhD. (If you want to see lots of horrible dreck written by people who claim to have assorted degrees, check out eHow. They can read and write, but they know snuff-all about their subject matter.)
I think a big part of the problem is complete lack of knowledge of fundamentals of biology (ooo! icky! I don't want to do that!) and chemistry. Add to that a lack of any real sense of number, and in some case proud innumeracy. They've never even come close to doing recrystallization of an organic compound, and wouldn't know a separatory funnel from a Büchner funnel. So, as you say, they are clueless about complexities of purification of something as difficult to deal with as a vaccine. They can't visualize how much a milligram of something is, and can't really relate to concentrations of ppm or ppb. Cripes, if the contents of their organic food or beloved supplements had the trace ingredients listed in the same way they are for vaccines, they would never touch them again.

Over the past few months, I've attended a lot of classes at Goggle U, trying to update my knowledge of some first aid related matters, which has led me down paths of review of antiseptics for wound care and the like. I've found it really annoying how much stuff is written for people who don't understand much, and how much is written by people who are just plain wrong. Unfortunately, Google doesn't understand -BS in a search expression. Even things written for pros were sadly wanting in some cases. I don't know how many papers I read recommending dilute PVP-iodine for irrigation of a bite from a possibly-rabid animal before I found one that actually attached a numeric value to the dilution factor. (I'd still really like to find an "ask the ER staff" site for some input on certain matters.)

Vaguely related: whenever someone is shown using a microscope in a TV program or movie, I always note how they approach it. About 9 time out of 10, the person will grasp and hold onto the ocular tubes, and not as you would to adjust them to eye spacing. Seeing someone reach for the focus or stage knobs is incredibly rare. But then, we are talking amusement trade writers.

To be honest, I don't think you need a graduate or even undergraduate understanding of things like chemistry or biology in order to understand things like "the dose makes the poison." All that one takes is a pretty basic knowledge of arithmetic. Being in the humanities, I know a fair number of math-phobic people - not dumb by any means. Actually, maybe they're math-phobic precisely because they're very smart in other ways, and since they weren't super-stars at math, they developed an antipathy toward it. But even those folks can understand, say, the difference between ppm and ppb. When it comes to reasonably intelligent people, I have to wonder what really drives the almost complete and seemingly willful lack of understanding of basic scientific and mathematical principles that seems to be behind a lot of woo.

Then again, I suppose perhaps the majority of people are not as smart as I would like to give them credit for. I always have scored toward the "smart" end of the bell curve when it comes to intelligence tests, and to be honest, I always sort of disbelieved the results in a statistical sense - maybe because it's sort of frightening to think that, yep, over 99% of people out there are not even as smart as I am, and I'm really not that freaking smart. Looking into issues like the anti-vaccination movement has sort of confronted me with the idea that those statistics may be closer to reality than I would like to consider.

Until I can be bothered to stand in dogshit again I am giving it a break for a while

One might note that Philip Hills, Hope Osteopathic Clinic Essex, here attempts to pretend that he is merely an enthusiastic fan of coitus interruptus when his zoophilic proclivities come to necessitate professional livestock management, whereas he in fact is merely a committed abortionist.

Maurine Meleck never claimed to have a Ph.D. in any major; she has a baccalaureate degree (in an unknown subject).

Meleck's claim to fame is that has two autistic grandchildren. She claims to have "recovered" one of the grandchildren and the other child's "supposed vaccine induced autism" was brought before the Vaccine Court. When the Omnibus Autism hearings, representing ~ 5,000 petitioners were unsuccessful, the Vaccine Court permitted her grandchild's petitioner to revise the claim to autism caused by a mitochondrial disorder...hey it worked for the Poleys...which supposedly caused the child's autism.

The claim was tossed, because there was no medical documentation of any mitochondrial disorder.

Doug, There are no bloggers on AoA who have Ph.Ds and the only one of the AoA critters who I encounter on blogs is CIA Parker who is an attorney (albeit on inactive status) and a Ph.D in Spanish literature.

Wow, I cannot believe the arrogance, ignorance, and just down right hateful comments some of you have made here. I am well educated from a top University in the country and had a career, but now I stay home and take care of my Autistic child who was hospitalized after his MMR at 14 months, which he never should have been given and was already showing neurological issues related to the neurotoxins from previous vaccines. We have no family history to point to genetic pattern, and in fact Stanford University genetics department genetics screening produced no indication of any family history. I trusted fully the safety of vaccines and how I know the supreme court said vaccines are unavoidably unsafe, so Dr and manufacturers could not be held liable in any way which is part of why we are here. The quantity of vaccines given to young children has tripled in last 30 years, and our Autism rates, and other neurological and autoimmune system issues have gone up dramatically. In modern countries where they do one half to one third the vaccines we do here, they have much lower rates of these problems in their population and their infant mortality rates are much lower. Their are plenty of independent and foreign studies showing the toxicity of the aluminum, mercury for shots which still contain, etc. There is a doctor in the US that has a population of 3000 children that are completely unvaccinated until after age three and there are no autistic children. So much information. Do your homework. I did mine. I am living it every day. I will never be so blind again to just believe the status-quo. Open your eyes. If you still cannot see after you do the research, at least be respectful of other people and their right to choose.

And by the way, I am not anti vaccine. But I think we need to focus on reasonable vaccine policies and safer vaccines, not increasing vaccine company profits and draconian vaccine policy. When it comes to a medical procedure or putting anything in our bodies that incurs risks, people must have a choice. By the way, anyone here want to pay for the life long care my severely autistic child requires? The vaccine company sure won't have to.

Narad, I'm not certain how long Parker has been out of the business of "lawyering" or how difficult it would be to activate her license. When she posts comments about the law, she mainly uses the papers that have been published by Dorit Rubenstein-Reiss....and she puts her own "spin" on those papers.

My husband kept up his license for several years after he retired from active practice because he did consulting work for his former employer and other lawyers in his specialty.

I was going to do a lengthy takedown of Kathy's garbage, but instead I'll just say this.
Vaccines did not cause your son's autism. The six best candidates were chosen to be used as Test Cases before the Vaccine Court. All lost. And they didn't just lose by a narrow margin either. The plaintiffs were trounced. They fared equally well on appeal. As for

I am not anti vaccine.

If you are reciting antivaxx talking points that we have seen and shown to be false numerous times already, then yes, you ARE antivaccine.
Finally, [citation needed] for every one of the factoids you spouted.

Whatever education you received from "a top university", I'd ask for my money back or at the very least, repay your parents for the waste of money you had for your so-called "education" if you keep spewing out repeatedly disproved antivaxxer points without a shred of evidence.

And also, look at the title of the blog. Regulars do not suffer fools like you well here.

For whatever it may be worth to you, I am also the parent of an autistic child. Also the sibling of an autistic child. I myself have ADD. My other child has ADHD, as does one of my brothers (not the autistic one), while my remaining brother is dyslexic. I can tell you this right off the bat: unless your family is unusually keen to diagnose learning disorders and psychiatric conditions, you would not know if your family carried any genes pertaining to autism. The medical history can only take you so far. And Standford University department's genetic screening can only take you so far, since autism is actually a highly varied condition and not all of the genes for it are known. What's more, and your geneticist ought to have explained this, many of the known ones are de novo -- which is to say they exist in the autistic person but not their parents. The mutation occured for the first time in either the germ line or in one of their gametes.

Your son was hospitalized after his MMR? Would you mind telling us what he was hospitalized for, or do you just want to lead us to think that it was *because of* the MMR without any of the bother of actually supporting that claim? I was hospitalized following some of my vaccinations, but it wasn't because of the vaccinations. It was because I'd contracted meningitis. (And hey! There are now vaccines to prevent several of the major causes of that disease!)

Your son should not have had MMR because he had neurological issues related to the neurotoxins from previous vaccines? First off, you do realize, don't you, that MMR is a live attenuated virus vaccine, and consequently doesn't contain adjuvants or preservatives? No aluminum, no mercury, none of the stuff you yammer on about later in your post. I am a little skeptical of the quality of the homework you say you've done, quite honestly. Also, you don't explain what sorts of issues or which "neurotoxins", making it very difficult to evaluate your claim. I will note that there no vaccine contains ingredients which are neurotoxic at the doses given. And if you had actually done your complete homework, instead of perhaps cribbing off the cheat sheet given by an antivax website, you'd know that. Let's go through some more of your claims:

The quantity of vaccines given to young children has tripled in last 30 years, and our Autism rates, and other neurological and autoimmune system issues have gone up dramatically.

"Quantity" is not as straightforward as you might think, so I'll ignore that. But the main thing here is that you fail to show that these two things are related. Antibiotic consumption by livestock has gone up. Saturation of RF in the household has gone up massively in the last 30 years. Personal computer use has exploded. Per capita vehicle ownership in America has gone up. Total hours of "screen time" has gone up. Myopia has increased. "Star Wars" has become increasingly popular. Social media has gone from a handful of folks on Usenet to the vast, pervasive juggernaut it is today. Starbucks is everywhere now. Communist nations have increasingly gone capitalist. The Yangtze River Dolphin has perished. A lot of things have happened in the last 30 years; you need more than just a temporal relatoinship to show they have anything to do with one another -- though just as a tip, several of the ones I listed have some actual evidence to suggest there might be a connection (to autism or to autoimmune disease), and they aren't vaccines. They may, in fact, be things that people will find it much harder to give up. So why pin it all on vaccines, when all you have is a temporal association? Is it just because that's easy and not something that will give you much headache to give up?

In modern countries where they do one half to one third the vaccines we do here, they have much lower rates of these problems in their population and their infant mortality rates are much lower.

Forgiving that you neglect to tell us which countries you are talking about (Afghanistan, for instance, would be a poor example to support your argument, with low vaccination rates and very high maternal and infant mortality), and forgiving that vaccination only affects infant mortality in a couple of cases, such as prevention of prenatal rubella and neonatal tetanus and is mainly about preventing *childhood* mortality . . . did you know that you cannot directly compare rates of autism or infant mortality from country to country? Different countries have different standards. Nations with low vaccination rates also tend to have poor access to medical care -- this is usually *why* they have low vaccination rates, in fact, so it should be no surprise. In these countries, diagnosing autism is very low priority. They have bigger problems, so in general only the worst cases will actually get diagnosis, let alone treatment. Secondly, infant mortality cannot be easily compared either, because of different definitions of the term. In most of the world, a child must survive the day of their birth in order to be counted as a live birth, including industrialized nations such as those in Europe. If they die within a few hours of birth, it's not counted. In the US, by contrast, any child who takes a breath outside the womb is considered a live birth and receives a birth certificate. You would expect, therefore, the US to have a much higher infant mortaility rate than, for instance, France, even with exactly the same actual events happening. The stillbirth rate would be higher in France, but there is nowhere that consistently even records those. What's more, births outside the hospital may not be counted anywhere unless the child lives a few months or more, so again, those countries with poor medical access will have low vaccination and even harder to count infant mortality. You have to make do with estimates, and a well-educated person ought to understand the hazards there.

Their are plenty of independent and foreign studies showing the toxicity of the aluminum, mercury for shots which still contain, etc.

It's probably too much to aks you to list them. Mercury is not in any childhood vaccinations in the US. (You never did say what country you are in, having just said "the country", but I'm hazarding a guess here.) It was removed as a precaution as some were concerned about autism. And guess what? The autism rate continues to rise, while antivaxxers continue to point to increasingly miniscule mercury exposures despite that. If you've done your homework, why do you still cling to this? Aluminum, meanwhile, is a very silly thing to worry about in vaccines -- you are exposed to far more through normal daily life. It is more widely used in European vaccines, incidentally, where government price controls demand more be done to reduce cost while increasing access. American flu vaccine supply is limited by the decision not to allow adjuvants in it -- without aluminum, they have to use more antigen per dose. And certainly I've seen antivaxxers find a way to make that be the bugbear of the moment too.

There is a doctor in the US that has a population of 3000 children that are completely unvaccinated until after age three and there are no autistic children.

Oh yes, I've heard of him. It's very easy to assure that none of your patients are diagnosed autistic. You don't take any patients who are on the spectrum, and you either discourage parents from seeking diagnosis or you manage to get them out of your practice. And if you base your business on this, you have a lot of financial motivation to do so. This is not a remotely fair sample, I'm sure you realize, as an *educated* person. (Or would you like to buy some lovely oceanfront property I have for sale?)

When it comes to a medical procedure or putting anything in our bodies that incurs risks, people must have a choice.

You do have a choice. Seriously. Under current policies, you absolutely have a choice. It takes an enormously privileged life, or else a stupendous sense of entitlement, to think that being asked to quarantine if unvaccinated is an undue burden.

BTW, you started off with your qualifications -- being "well educated from a top University in the country" with "a career". That's pretty vague, and if your qualification was in anything remotely relevant, you'd know that. I cannot help but wonder whether or not your vagueness for all of your claims is deliberate. After all, it's easier to make claims if you do not have to actually back them up.

Incidentally, I also note you only claimed to have been educated at a top university. You dud not claim to have graduated....

“The influenza vaccine was about 19% effective for the 2014/15 season and is usually considerably more effective.” LOL

Well that is interesting, 20% is considered to be placebo so why bother pretending its the vaccine? that’s the lot of snake oil, highjacking a natural effect and selling it as a must have.

You're confusing likelihood of preventing influenza with effectiveness of the vaccine. johnny won't care about this answer, but I'm giving it for anyone who does care about the nuances of reality.

The influenza vaccine is upwards of 90% effective at immunizing a person to the strains contained in the vaccine. They measure this in clincial trials by looking at antibody titers. The problem is that influenza is extremely variable, and evolves rapidly. You may get exposed to a strain that wasn't in the vaccine. So the likelihood of actually avoiding influenza depends not only on the vaccine but also on which influenza you actually end up encountering. Some years the vaccine is a good match; some years it isn't. Your odds are definitely better with the vaccine, even in a year with a poor match, but precisely because it's so variable, it's mostly recommended for people at higher risk from influenza. This includes more people than you might realize: small children, women who will be pregnant during flu season, asthmatics, smokers, people with other lung problems, the elderly, the immunosuppressed (if they can get the vaccine at all), and people who are in institutional environments (lots of people in close quarters -- schools, nursing homes, military barracks, group homes, prisons, etc.).

WOW what a cesspool of denial, insecurity, misinformation, bad science and anxiety at this Blog. After a complete analysis its clear whats going on here. I have reviewed lots of his posts and I see a common thread. Orac is scarred shitless because the science he built his entire life around is unraveling in real time and is moving away from his traditional training and he can't stand it. So he lashes out against anything that isn't conventional wisdom like a big baby having a temper tantrum. HAHAHAH Its so obvious.

Then you have the zoo of flying monkeys coming in to defend his tantrum. Not realizing they are getting left behind too. ALL LOST They're arguments are weak so they must resort to personal attacks on people. Johhny, Kathy and Ken good job kicking ass against these Neanderthals.
At this Blog it should be called.
IN CHEMICALS WE TRUST!

Doug @193 wrote: "I don’t think reading ability is a big barrier for a lot of the anti-vax set."

I wasn't commenting on the reading ability of anti-vaxxers*; instead, I was attempting to point out that FDA package inserts attempt to communicate extremely complicated information couched in language that is by design set at or below the eighth grade reading level. Accordingly, much is lost in the translation/dumbing down process.

There is a doctor in the US that has a population of 3000 children that are completely unvaccinated until after age three and there are no autistic children. So much information. Do your homework. I did mine.

Not very well, if you can't even identify the stone cold dead Mayer Eisenstein and get the order of magnitude of the fictional number correct.

"You’re confusing likelihood of preventing influenza with effectiveness of the vaccine." calliflower

Love your 'answer'.

Well that is weasle words, it's not the fall off the mountain that killed the kids it was the sudden stop at the end. I admire your manure marketing. How about this for a film, again a medic who has whistle blown polio vaccination.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Twch-T-n8Ns

Thanks Theo, they are political waballoons really, it's kind of fun pissing them off. Narad really took the bate and his knob must be red raw, I think he spends his time jacking off over his posts - until they unravel.

Well that is weasle words, it’s not the fall off the mountain that killed the kids it was the sudden stop at the end.

It's not weasel words. It's pointing out that you're using numbers for different things and acting like they're the same thing. I do not seriously expect you to acknowledge the distinction, however. You choose numbers by convenience, and like Humpty Dumpty with words, they mean precisely what you intend them to mean.

re: "calliflower" -- well, there are worse things to be called, though stooping to a username distortion is an excellent way of showing your lack of an actual argument.

What I don't understand is that back in the late 70's and early 80's, American lawyers successfully sued pharmaceutical companies claiming that vaccines caused a variety of illnesses, including unexplained coma, sudden infant death syndrome, Reye's syndrome, transverse myelitis, mental retardation, and epilepsy. By 1986, all but one manufacturer of the diphtheria–tetanus–pertussis vaccine had left the market. This is when VICP was created.
Why were they refusing to manufacture vaccines?

JP
I agree that you don't need to have much understanding of biology or chemistry to accept the evidence of the sciences, but it does help to really understand the evidence. For "dose makes the poison", for example, it helps to have some general knowledge of mechanisms and rates of reactions, absorption, excretion, etc. if you want to understand why it is reasonable and "no safe amount ever" is such nonsense.
Among the antivaxers there appear to be large numbers who do not accept the evidence but are completely unable to refute it based on actual understanding of the sciences, while still asserting how educated they are. But the whole conspiracy thing also is huge. They seem to picture gangs of enforcers, decked out in funny tasseled surgeon's caps, wearing big clunky rings with little symbols of cross scalpels over a retractor and aprons with bistoury knives and Collins forceps in the pockets, roving the world just looking for those who betray the secrets and anxious for opportunities to tear out tongues by their roots and cut throats across (the burying at the low water line, though essential to hiding the evidence, left to the enforcement orderlies).

Obviously, because the manufacturers kept getting sued, which, even if they won the case (and they usually did) or settled, ate up a lot of time and money. The ambulance chasers of the world are numerous and greedy.
So, the companies said 'this isn't worth it,' and quit manufacturing vaccines, and the government realized they had to entice manufacturers to prevent epidemics, and the easiest way to do that was to crack down on the lawsuits.

Of those conditions.. let's see: I think Reyes is genetic, epilepsy is genetic, and mental retardation is usually genetic or caused by something else, unrelated to vaccines.
Back in the day, they could distinguish mental retardation from brain damage caused by lack of oxygen. SIDs before the '80s or '70s cannot be reliably distinguished from child abuse or infants who were born with cardiac defects.
So a lot of your list was simply cr*p made up by the lawyers and thrown at the companies to see if they settled. Btw, a settlement is not the same as a 'win.'

I agree that you don’t need to have much understanding of biology or chemistry to accept the evidence of the sciences, but it does help to really understand the evidence. For “dose makes the poison”, for example, it helps to have some general knowledge of mechanisms and rates of reactions, absorption, excretion, etc. if you want to understand why it is reasonable and “no safe amount ever” is such nonsense.

Sure, but I still think only a pretty basic knowledge of chemistry and/or biology is necessary even for that. Knowing what the various organs do is a good thing, I suppose* - and I guess a lot of people don't. I have a decent knowledge of chemistry, though it's not as good as it used to be - use it or lose it, y'know. But I don't think you need to be a chemist or even particularly educated in chemistry to understand the fact that anything can be toxic in large enough doses. There still seems to be some sort of resistance to understanding it among a lot of people, though.

And I wouldn't turn up my nose at people who simply accept scientific or medical consensus. I mean, TBH, that's pretty much what I do - I'm not educated enough in climate science to really, fully understand the science behind it, even if I understand the basics. Ditto with a lot of things.

* I was very mildly proud of myself when, a few months ago while standing in line at a book signing - I was having Alison Bechdel sign my copy of Fun Home, incidentally - I was able to explain what the spleen does to the couple of ladies standing in front of me wondering out loud about it.

PGP Reyes is not genetic
"Reye's Syndrome is a two-phase illness because it is almost always associated with a previous viral infection such as influenza (flu), cold, or chicken pox. Scientists do know that Reye's Syndrome is not contagious and the cause is unknown. Reye's Syndrome is often misdiagnosed as encephalitis, meningitis, diabetes, drug overdose, poisoning, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, or psychiatric illness."www.reyessyndrome.org/what.ht

You’re asking whether vaccination is worth it. There could be stupider questions — just wait till some C-grade celebrity leads the charge against indoor plumbing and electric lights.

and (to keep it on topic)

The concept of herd immunity having now been explained often enough that even state legislators understand it, since the beginning of this year lawmakers in a dozen states have introduced bills modifying vaccination policy — some eliminating the personal or philosophical exemption, others requiring school districts to make vaccination-rate information publicly available. Medicofascism? Some think so. But if ever there were justification for public intrusion into private decision-making, this is it.

He also takes on a few anti-vax talking points -

It’s not the mercury, it’s the aluminum.
Too many vaccines administered simultaneously or in close succession can overwhelm the immune system.
Vaccines haven’t actually been that effective — death rates were decreasing in the relevant diseases even before the vaccines were introduced.

And I wouldn’t turn up my nose at people who simply accept scientific or medical consensus.

Nor would I. We all accept things of which we understand very little. The simple fact of the matter is that there just isn't enough time in any one person's life for that person to understand more than a few topics well, a range of others with vague familiarity, and the rest with, at best, acknowledgment of existence. I see it as very much parallel to choosing which of the myriads of horrible things in the world that you can find the energy to combat. Just because we can't fix them all, and some are "more important" than others doesn't mean good can't be done by someone who makes a "small" issue their cause. Striped equines may disagree.

The people who do deserve insolence are those who argue against well-reasoned and consensus when they have very little knowledge, or as you mention, actual resistance thereto. And then there are the people who pretend to know things and make stuff up.

troll
verb
gerund or present participle: trolling
1. informal: make a deliberately offensive or provocative online posting with the aim of upsetting someone or eliciting an angry response from them.
2. fish by trailing a baited line along behind a boat.

Interesting how no one responded to the whistle blower on the polio fraud, I suppose it's because she is a proper doctor and knows that polio vaccine is bullshit.

Only a true vaccine believer could watch that film and see nothing but nothing.

Herr puppet doctor it is a shame I am not Mr Hill and never have been, that's the limit of your imagination. God hope you are not actually a doctor, what the hell must your diagnostic skills relate to. Looking at lists I guess.

johnny - you seem to think that every time you go into moderation it's because Orac put you there. It seems far more likely you've triggered the automatic filters - possibly because you mistyped your name or email address, or included too many links, or some other poorly defined cause.

The fact that your message "Ah back in moderation" came through suggests you are not in moderation.

Well, what else would you expect from a sadistic troll like theo. When you point out the flaws in his twisted argument, he/she/it flees rather than defend him/her/itself.

But I got to admit, reading theo's drivel is good for a couple of laughs, as well as showing people how morally deficient the typical anti-vaxxer really is. It's already worked, showing a few nurses, doctors, and parents theo's "argument's" given them a good laugh and pretty much reinforcing to them the importance of vaccination. No one with critical thinking skills wants to be associated with theo's or phillip "johnny" hills' type of crazy.

you seem to think that every time you go into moderation it’s because Orac put you there

Oh, no, it's far more nefarious. About two weeks ago, Phildo decided to start insinsuating that he was being moderated by everybody else (it goes on).

Not even Philip Hills, Hope Osteopathic Clinic Essex, is that stupid. The tediously repeated complaint is just filler for when he still craves attention but is too far in his cups or short for inspiring "new" material.

The recently started whining about the time of day is just more of the same embarrassment.

I love how the anti-vax loons continue to talk as if the apocalypse is about to fall on the medical establishment and their grand coverup scheme regarding vaccine "injury". It's literally the same arguments that I've been hearing for over a decade. A lot of these posts could literally have been cut-and-paste jobs from 2005.

What exactly is a "top University"? The place I hear is this term used most often is the Exposing Pseudo Astronomy podcast. Astronomy cranks and crackpots are always claiming scientists at "top" or "top 10" university support their whackaloon hypothesis, usually on Coast to Coast or other conspiracy radio shows. This does not speak well for "top universities".

The story seems to have been an unexpected outcome of Ms Kolsch's American Idol advocacy.. The gist of her censorious threats against a blogger is that any forged-signature shenanigans in which she may have been involved did *not* reach the threshold for having her struck off the Florida bar; so anyone who suggests otherwise should govern themselves accordingly.

That was late 2012 but alas, Popehat has not been called into the imbroglio.

“I want to apologize to all whom I offended by my use of the word [Holocaust] to describe the autism epidemic,” Kennedy said in a statement. “I employed the term during an impromptu speech as I struggled to find an expression to convey the catastrophic tragedy of autism which has now destroyed the lives of over 20 million children and shattered their families.” '

A Study of vax vs non vax in Germany is not going to cut for me or the rest of the refusers in this country. We want an independent watchdog to oversea the study. Capeesh?

As for money drumming there is no motive to not vaccinate or promote not vaccinating. What to sell a book? or some VIT C? Thats minuscule compared to the motive behind vaccines. I read there are 300 vaccines in the pipeline. Now thats a motive and you get the bonus free sales force from your heavily trained pediatricians. And your immune from lawsuit. Now thats MOTIVATION!

The fact of the matter is you do not need to vaccinate your children. Thats a myth that all of you got bamboozled into. 10's of 1000's of unvaccinated children roam this country thriving. Smart people like myself see through the propaganda and fear mongering and are not buying the sketchy science. We don't accept the flimsy research on Mercury or Aluminum. There should be dozens of biological studies on both of those ingredients over the long term to understand how they work and effect our children.

According to Congressmen Burton
Invented in the 1920’s by Eli Lilly, thimerosal is 49.6% ethlymercury by weight, a neurotoxin known to be more than a hundreds times more lethal to tissue than lead.

Eli Lilly’s safety testing of the product consists of a 1930 study of 22 patients dieing from mengiococcal meningitis in an Indiana hospital. Patients are injected with the solutions and followed until their death, which is within days. Because the patients die of meningitis, they are declared to show no adverse reaction to thimerosal and the product is declared safe for use. Thimerosal is subsequently introduced for use in vaccines and in over the counter remedies as a preservative to kill bacteria in the product.

WTF are you kidding me? thats your science? I wonder if every American knew that history what they would do?

You cited the amish getting whooping cough. so what? nobody died, they were inconvenienced just like a flu or a common cold. BFD! Plus that vaccine doesnt work. guess what does work to lesson the symptoms and severity and prevent death? VIT C DUH! look it up. it sops up the toxins that the infection leaves in its wake that can cause death. Of course your medical doctor is clueless and is not trained to prescribe C only more toxic chemicals & antibiotics.

If you love your vaccines wonderful get your dope, shoot up your children and your selves every year. Bravo! Congrats enjoy your injected AL & Merc. Your protected in your own mind. I saw everyone discussing the flu shot. How can I honesty debate a group that defends the Flu shot? You have really drank the Kool Aid and are so far away from the truth its literally impossible to debate with you.

In Summary of this topic there are so many inconsistencies, gaping holes that can be exploited to take down the entire industry: Is it any wander why they never tell you both sides of the story when you take your child to the pediatrician? RED FLAG. They keep Doctors heavily trained in promoting safe and effective then fear mongering parents if they dont? Wake up!

Here is my list of easily proven and documented contradictions and malfeasance. Its simply too easy to blow a hole the size of China through this industry. and take it DOWN!
Shoddy science, contamination history SV-40 and XMRV, fraud, corruption, (Hep B and Flu Shot <idiotic), fear mongering, damaged children, 3 billion and counting, cover ups, heavy metal, attenuated viruses, No carcinogenic or mutagenic testing, Coercion, no long term follow up studies only short term surveillance, revolving doors between pharma FDA, CDC, congress, dismissal of science proving vaccines are dangerous. the terrible way we are treated by the pro vax crowd, defecting credible Medical Doctors blowing the whistle on the bunk vaccine science and history, the graphs showing deaths from VPD diseases were 90% eradicated prior to vaccines coming on the market, Vaccine efficacy vs actual effectiveness <-FRAUD, immunity from lawsuit, good honest scientists being censored or funding drying up, entire health care professions not vaccinating their children. Nurses and Doctors against mandatory vaccinating, Zero stories about damaged children in the media, personal attacks on anyone questioning the safety. its all ONE SIDED.

This is abundantly clear to me. It smells of a propaganda campaign built on DOGMA. The industry is terrified of something that they are not telling us about, and it shows in how they are acting and how they have manipulated the public suckers like you to gang up on the vaccines safety questioners. Anytime we FORCE medical procedures in the name of the greater good. LOOK OUT thats a red flag......COMMUNISM
When you start legislating removing exemptions you are asking for an outright war with parents. it will not stand and it will backfire with devastating consequences for the industry.

I will not be answering any questions I have made all my points here. I have nothing more to add to this topic.

...take care of my Autistic child who was hospitalized after his MMR at 14 months, which he never should have been given and was already showing neurological issues related to the neurotoxins from previous vaccines.

Simple question, Kathy: how exactly have you factually established the neurological issues your son was already showing were causally ralted to the vaccines he'd received previously? Be specific.

That conclusion derives, I trust, on some basis other than a post hoc ergo propter hoc logical fallacy, seasoned liberally with a bit of "What else could it have been?"

What about them?
Oh, do you mean the ones being developed to fight cancer? That's how much scientists have control on them.

the graphs showing deaths from VPD diseases were 90% eradicated prior to vaccines coming on the market,

Err, a decrease in death only means we had become good at treating sick people. It doesn't by itself means that the diseases were on the way to eradication.
That you need are the graphs showing the annual number of cases prior and after vaccines were introduced.
Funny enough, these graphs show a very quick fall after the vaccines were in.
And even more funny, Countries which have decided to do away with vaccines (Japan in early 80's, Ukraine in early 90's) see an increase of sick people soon afterward. I guess a sewer broke, or something.

Also, you are not consistent. Are VPD potentially lethal, or are they just benign like common cold? It's one or the other.

good honest scientists being censored or funding drying up,

And what would happen to bad scientists with dishonest research? Being censored and funding drying up.
How do you tell which is which?

its all ONE SIDED.

You must be kidding me.
In the past 20 years, stupid people like you had plenty of chances to put forward your concerns. You have your conferences, your media, your editors.
Eh, during the recent measles outbreak around Disneyland, a number of your leaders got interviewed by mainstream media.

Not our fault if your arguments keep falling like so many ill-built castles of cards.

@theo
Ah, thanks for the word salad, and proving that you hate children.

Please, keep on posting, so the world can see how illogical and full of hatred you and the anti-vax contingent really are.

Again, all of your supposed points have been addressed so many times before, so why should anyone bother to address you points again when you keep regurgitating the same old tired canards like a cow chewing its cud.

You also completely neglected the fact that VPDs can cause serious and sometimes lifelong affects other than death. Is maiming people in the name of science always ok for you, or just when vaccines are involved?

THEO answered:

[crickets chirping]

I'll let you think about that one a little more. It's a tricky question. But while you're thinking about it, let me add on a followup question. You seem to think it's ok for parents to sacrifice their children for scientific research. Is it ok for other people to sacrifice children, or are parents special?

I said:

Our local Amish had a pertussis outbreak a bit ago. They were terrified, some of them were pretty miserable, and there was definitely some self-quarantining going on. Not exactly thriving, although there were no deaths to my knowledge.

THEO replied:

You cited the amish getting whooping cough. so what? nobody died, they were inconvenienced just like a flu or a common cold. BFD!

Do you tell your customers you think that terror, weeks of misery, and self-quarantining are all no big deal? What exactly is a big deal to you?

Oh, BTW, [our local Amish] also have a separate school for their non-neurotypical children. My source says that the community is very pleased because it’s lead to better outcomes both for the neurotypicals and the non-neurotypicals. But my source also says that most communities still keep all their children in one school regardless of ability.

THEO answered thus:

[more crickets]

No thoughts at all on why they still have children with ADHD even though they seem to be undervaccinated for pertussus at least?

THEO exclaimed:

Wouldnt you want to know what 49 doses vs 0 doses does. I sure do.

I gave him great news:

Fortunately, you can get a pretty good idea of what they do by reading the multiple epidemiological studies on the topic. Some of them have been linked recently in this very thread!

THEO rejoiced, proclaiming:

A Study of vax vs non vax in Germany is not going to cut for me or the rest of the refusers in this country. We want an independent watchdog to oversea the study. Capeesh?

I'm a little surprised given how anxious you were to look at vaxed vs. unvaxed studies that you only are talking about one of the links we pointed out to you in that thread. One of them was by the Department of Medical Microbiology and Parasitology, at the University of Calabar, which is in Nigeria. That seems pretty independent to me of anything relevant.

What exactly do you mean by "independent"? As we've mentioned before, there is a study out there from a health insurance company, which has a huge financial incentive to keep their subscribers from getting sick. Is that enough? Would a study done by, say, Thoughtful House employees and financed by people like SafeMinds count?

Do you reject the German study because you think that people there react differently to vaccinations, or because they have a different vaccination schedule? Would a study that uses the US schedule be good enough for you?

I observed:

You still haven’t shown that kids are sicker now than they were when dying of smallpox or becoming paralyzed by polio for life were popular things to do, let alone that vaccines cause more harm than they prevent.

THEO responded:

[an entomological symphony]

I'm starting to see a pattern here. Maybe you should reconsider some of your positions.

I gave THEO a bit of a research assignment:

It’s kind of hard to justify that statement given that there have been vaccines that were pulled off the market. Were the researchers who discovered the problems with those vaccines mistreated in any way? Be specific.

THEO's latest attempt to address the question is like this:

Here is my list of easily proven and documented contradictions and malfeasance . . . defecting credible Medical Doctors blowing the whistle on the bunk vaccine science and history

Not a very in-depth answer. Please try again. Note the "be specific."

Lastly, I gave this challenge:

I still have a question for you. How do the power and profit motives influence the “different drummers” you like to quote and promote?

THEO actually answered, saying:

As for money drumming there is no motive to not vaccinate or promote not vaccinating. What to sell a book? or some VIT C? Thats minuscule compared to the motive behind vaccines. I read there are 300 vaccines in the pipeline. Now thats a motive and you get the bonus free sales force from your heavily trained pediatricians. And your immune from lawsuit. Now thats MOTIVATION!

It's funny how there are at least three subtle advertisements for vitamin C in your response. You're right that there are lots of customers for vaccines, but that's because they have a headstart and a really good track record. Don't worry, though. I've seen bottles of vitamin C priced up way higher than the markup on vaccines, so while you probably can't beat them on volume, you can still make plenty of money on whatever it is you're trying to sell.

And let's not forget Dr. Wakefield's attempt to replace the measles component of MMR with something that conveniently would require frequent boosters to be effective if it worked at all.

Have you ever looked into where the "different drummers" you like to quote and promote live? They seem to be doing quite nicely for themselves. Definitely better than what I live in. And they can get people to make big changes in their lifestyles. That's power.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear that there are 300 vaccines in the works. Of course, most of those won't pan out, because getting approved is hard. Then most of them are for things that are only endemic for certain areas, so that decreases the clientele. Also, there is probably overlap where the same diseases are targeted by more than one company, so that lessens the number any given company will sell even further. So you don't have to worry about there being protection from every disease. There will still be ways for people to be miserable for the foreseeable future.

Honestly, THEO, I'm a bit disappointed. You didn't respond to most of my points. I was expecting better from you.

Theo appears to be cutting and pasting random sentences from the NVIC and Age of Autism...stringing them together in an almost incoherent rant against vaccines held together by a generous helping of conspiracy-glue.

As for money drumming there is no motive to not vaccinate or promote not vaccinating. What to sell a book? or some VIT C? Thats minuscule compared to the motive behind vaccines.

The Brave Maverick Antivax Doctors seem to be doing all right with their cash-only practices in such locations as Manhattan, Scottsdale and Beverly Hills. A lot better than Dr Average Primary Care Physician dealing with health insurance.

I've never been clear how this supposed "profit" from vaccinations and the like works over here, what with the vast bulk of us healthcare types being on state salaries - y'know, the NHS - or is this just dismissed by THEO saying "communism!"?

"I’ve never been clear how this supposed “profit” from vaccinations and the like works over here, what with the vast bulk of us healthcare types being on state salaries" murmuring fxxwit

Well it's not the coal face workers who profit dumbo - it's the Pharma companies that con the NHS into buying futile unproven products like flu vaccine for multi millions. I suppose you could say the doctors are then kept employed by all the people who are fucked by the vaccine like the 800 kids with narcolepsy, so that is a kind of employment generator. You need to get out of bed and stop figging like Narad does all day long ans start looking at what is going on instead of seeing Pubmed as some kind of weird porn.

"I’ve never been clear how this supposed “profit” from vaccinations and the like works over here, what with the vast bulk of us healthcare types being on state salaries" murmuring fxxwit

Well it's not the coal face workers who profit dumbo - it's the Pharma companies that con the NHS into buying futile unproven products like flu vaccine for multi millions. I suppose you could say the doctors are then kept employed by all the people who are fucked by the vaccine like the 800 kids with narcolepsy, so that is a kind of employment generator. You need to get out of bed and stop figging like Narad does all day long ans start looking at what is going on instead of seeing Pubmed as some kind of weird porn.
Perhaps you have no idea what you think

Johnny, once again you lie, lie, lie.
It has been shown that the "800 cases of narcolepsy after vaccination" was nowhere near that number. This is the "child who died of measles was vaccinated" all over again.

THEO: Mistaking elements for compounds is major error. Sodium metal and table salt and different substances with different properties, as are mercury and thimerosal. Take high school chemistry again before you come back.

I'm not in a position to watch your video at the moment, but it's pretty clear that you or whoever you're citing is misinterpreting that. I just typed the key sequence t-h-i-m-down-down-down-down into PubMed and got back http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=thimerosal+toxicity and got back 203 results. Limiting the results to studies published after 1930 dropped the number of results down to 203. So it looks like you might be wrong about there not being any research done on thimerosal since 1930.

To hell with all of this debate about whether or not vaccines are safe or unsafe. .. There's no easy on God's green earth that any human being should be forced to accept an injection or ingestion of anything! This is a human rights argument. You will not force me to do this Amy more than you will take my guns. This will be the beginning of the next civil war! Some people are just stupid!

To hell with all of this debate about whether or not vaccines are safe or unsafe. .. There's no way on God's green earth that any human being should be forced to accept an injection or ingestion of anything! This is a human rights argument. You will not force me to do this any more than you will take my guns. This will be the beginning of the next civil war!

John: "You will not force me to do this any more than you will take my guns."

So you're the idiot that almost tore off my front bumper because you were in the left lane with a red arrow, and you did not want to wait for it to turn green... just gun the engine move into my lane and ignore all traffic laws.

The congressional hearing video from 2004 is crystal clear. The only study done was in 1930, as of 2004 the year of that hearing. Are you going to deny sworn testimony by the FDA? of course you are.

So we injected babies with mercury for decades with no studies. Thats just great. I have so much more trust now. smh

John is spot on!! you can't force injections on people maybe in China not the USA.

I have a question. Where are all the autistic 30 year olds if its just better diagnosis and screening? My Gosh they must be everywhere! Sadly we never hear stories about them or see them. But I can name off a dozen stories of children with Autism of kids I know personally.

THEO: Again, mercury is not the same thing as thimerosal. And studies have been done, well after 1930, if you bothered to take five mintues to look something up. Face it, you'd rather let someone spoon-feed you the information, without bothering to do any effort to find the truth at all.

Well, I can show you more than a few in a number of Engineering Departments that I've had the luck to interact with - and more that I've met in every day life.

Autism is developmental delay, not developmental stasis - if you actually took the time to talk to an Autistic adult, they would describe their childhoods to be much like those that we see today - but there was always that small percentage that never really progressed & were institutionalized (or were / are in prison) or just died.

Seriously Theo - you're such an idiot....lacking even a modicum of common sense.

Theo, I passed through my thirties some thirty years ago (yes, I'm in my 70's now). You're not willing to count people like me, still autistic after all those years (isn't there a song kinda like that?)?

And you know what, John/ No one IS forcing you to be vaccianted, or to vaccinate your children. There will however be consequences should you elect not to do so--you may no longer be eligible for employment in some health care professions, and your children may no longer be eligible to renroll in public schools or childcare facilities, but that's not the same thing at all.

I sure you wouldn't be one to argue that exercising one's personal freedom should be held free of any and all consequences...

To hell with all of this debate about whether or not vaccines are safe or unsafe. ..

Great! That should be a settled question by now.

There’s no way on God’s green earth that any human being should be forced to accept an injection or ingestion of anything!

Does that apply to feeding your children as well? Should a parent not be held responsible if, say, they don't feed their children? Regardless, though, I don't expect anyone to be forced to vaccinate. You just can't participate in certain activities if you do.

This is a human rights argument.

You might have a point if there were an actual attempt to used force to vaccinate. So far, not so much. However, human rights are not absolute. Where's the tradeoff between your individual right to say "I won't do this thing that's for my benefit just because you want me to do it" and the community's right to protect itself from disease?

You will not force me to do this any more than you will take my guns.

Nobody wants your guns except gun thieves. This will be the beginning of the next civil war!I strongly doubt it, but let me know if that happens.

Even if that were true (it isn't), thimerosal was in use for several decades in immunoglobulins and other blood products for many decades, in far higher doses than in any vaccine. Patients have been given up to 1,800 mg (that's 1.8 million micrograms) of thimerosal intravenously without noticeable ill effects (the infamous Eli Lily experiments with terminal meningococcal meningitis patients in 1930), that's 72,000 times as much thimerosal as there is in a flu vaccine. No signs of neurological damage have been observed except in doses several orders of magnitude higher than in vaccines.

This is good evidence that thimerosal in vaccines is not and never was a cause of neurological damage. Sorry to repeat myself, but I think a passage from this paper (PDF) published by the AAP last year is worth repeating:

Overwhelmingly, the evidence collected over the past 15 years has failed to yield any evidence of significant harm, including serious neurodevelopmental disorders, from use of thimerosal in vaccines. Dozens of studies from countries around the world have supported the safety of thimerosal-containing vaccines. Specifically, the Institute of Medicine, and others have concluded that the evidence favors rejection of a link between thimerosal and autism.

Careful studies of the risk of other serious neurodevelopmental disorders have failed to support a causal link with thimerosal. In May 2002, the American Academy of Pediatrics retired its 1999 statement on thimerosal after evaluating new studies. [...] Had the evidence that is available now been available in 1999, the policy reducing thimerosal use would likely have not been implemented. Furthermore, in 2008 the World Health Organization (WHO) endorsed the use of thimerosal in vaccines.

It is just ludicrous to claim that thimerosal in vaccines is any sort of issue given the level and quality of evidence we have now.

So here is a good documentary by a 'proper doctor' pointing out how Polio has a lot to do with 'proper doctors' spraying kids with DDT and not a lot do do with a successful vaccine. I still see no comment by Naradknobred about this example of a doctor sponsored epidemic and I wonder why?

"It is just ludicrous to claim that thimerosal in vaccines is any sort of issue given the level and quality of evidence we have now." Krebby pants

A beautiful example of a vaccine failure denialist, so given you think thimerosal is so safe it should be in Hershey bars I suppose you would go along with the idea that 'DDT its good for me' makes sense. The fact DDT causes anterior horn demylination of course is a complete co incidence.

Vaccine failure denial is a wonderful thing for shares - well done that boy.

I love the 'quality of evidence straw man' it's such a good market share booner. I suppose weapons of mass destruction did the same thing for the Middle East - sounded good on paper but in the field it's a disaster. Vaccination is like that, all those years spent mixing wallop - it must make sense and even if it doesn't work you can tell people it does.

Better still get governments to underight any fall out from the vaccine killing people and they will have to buy it. Surely governments and doctors don't kill people do they?

"Careful studies of the risk of other serious neurodevelopmental disorders have failed to support a causal link with thimerosal. In May 2002, the American Academy of Pediatrics retired its 1999 statement on thimerosal after evaluating new studies........." Drivel

What a pile of medical anecdote, how can the people responsible for making the shit evaluate it? Let's ask Pol Pot to evaluate his ethnic cleansing - it makes sense.

THEO: "Where are all the autistic 30 year olds if its just better diagnosis and screening?"

Points to twenty-six year old son sitting on living room floor watching television. I was assured in 1991 he did not have autism even though he could not speak, because he simply did not meet the DSM III criteria.

Just in the last few weeks he has been given the diagnosis of autism by two separate psychologists. He qualifies under both DSM IV and DSM V.

Johnny, I have a direct question (which, unfortunately, I predict you'll studiously ignore):

What in your opinion represents the single most credible and compelling piece of scientific evidence suggesting that at, levels of exposure acheivable by routine vaccination, thimerosal is toxic or otherwise harmful? Be specific.

You keep claiming that all studies which fail to find even the hint of a problem with its use are not to be trusted, because "CONSPIRACY THEORY!"--I'm curious what you would have us rely on instead.

(needless to say the inability to identify even a single good study in support of your claims can only be taken as the tacit admission you in fact have no evidence which supports your position).

"What a pile of medical anecdote, how can the people responsible for making the shit evaluate it?"

Whatever makes you think vaccine evaluating the safety and performance of vaccines is done solely by " the people responsible for making the sh!t"? There are multiple public and private health care agencies and other independent researchers operating in multiple nations who have examined the possibility of a causal association ebtween vaccination and ASD's, etc.

Surely you're not crazy enough to suggest that they're all part of some vast conspiracy to conceal the dangers of vaccination?

Johnny, your link in #311 directed to a video by Suzanne Humphries--do you really believe that having your own entry in the Encyclopedia of American Loons is consonant with being characterized as a 'proper doctor'?

I'm actually a bit surprised the the twits haven't caught on to the fact that mercury is quite volatile - extraordinarily so for a metal - and claim that innocent victims can be poisoned by mercury "shed" by people vaccinated from multi-dose vials.

I worked this up some time ago, then never posted it:
A 10-dose vial typically contains about 250 micrograms of mercury.
A compact fluorescent lamp typically contains about 4000 micrograms of mercury; the "best" available about 1000 micrograms. Except in cold "amalgam" lamps, it exists as liquid mercury or mercury vapor.
USA "average" coal contains about 0.2 ppm of mercury, so it takes about 1.25 kg of coal to contain the mercury equivalent of a 10-dose vial of vaccine.
A median figure for energy yield from coal is 21 MJ/kg, for about 26.3 MJ/vial-equiv. 26.3 MJ will run a 100 W light bulb for about 73 hours.
Or course the mercury in coal is mostly going to stay put til the coal is burned. And the mercury in thimerosal is going to stay oxidized, unless is hooks up with a suitable reducing agent. The former is pretty much a certainty; the latter decidedly less so.

It's quite clear that Philip Hills, Hope Osteopathic Clinic Essex, has simply run out of material to recycle, yet despite the failed flounce, he simply can't resist driving his S/N further into the ground.

Perhaps he's not getting enough attention at home; I don't much care. At least the lowercase pseudonym is readily plonkable. One mildly amusing note, however, is that his sudden fixation on the word "knob" is itself derivative, although he apparently still doesn't get the reference.

Strangely, despite obsessively denying that he is Philip Hills – to the point that he has asserted that Philip Hills has been plagiarizing him – Phildo can't quite bring himself to actually criticize Philip Hills, despite items such as this.*

I once stayed in an apartment in Warsaw which had a thermometer on the window with temperatures in Celsius, Fahrenheit, and Kelvin. You know, just in case it ever got so cold you needed to know how close it was to absolute zero.

This of course is not a "film," and Humphries is a screaming hypocrite for continuing to draw a salary as a nephrologist while railing against "allopathic" medicine while selling her conversion to homeopathy, but this is of no import.

What I refrained from mentioning was that (1) trivially, I don't waste my time on the Death in Life that is argumentum ad Yootoobium and (2) more saliently, Bud Townsend's Alice in Wonderland might be closer to an intellectual challenge if Philip Hills were to uncharacteristically elect to stick to a (*koff*) flancetto.

Yes but only 2% of ‘immunity’ is acquired, the rest is all fever, vomiting, diarrhea, sweating all the things the medics love to suppress. The 98% depends on good nutrition, something you seem to know little of and other environmental factors.

It makes no sense to try and interfere with the 2%....

Even granting, arguendo, the cartoonishly false premise based on some combination of misreading, selective memory, dishonesty, and plain stupidity, Phildo still loses, given that it's effector T cells or bust for measles.

"An Assembly committee Wednesday approved an amended version of an intensely fought bill requiring full vaccination for most California students.

The 7-2 vote offered none of the drama of the previous Senate Education Committee hearing, when Senate Bill 277’s authors agreed to delay a vote in the face of hours of stinging testimony and pointed questions from fellow legislators about preserving childrens’ ability to get an education."

So much for AoA's frothing about machinations to modify the committee:

"The education committee carried a different roster from the one that halted the bill last week. Gone was Senate Minority Leader Bob Huff, R-Diamond Bar, who had said he could not support SB 277. His replacement, Sen. Sharon Runner, R-Lancaster, voted no. Appointed to fill a vacancy on the panel was Sen. Bill Monning, D-Carmel, who voted for the bill in its previous committee. He voted in favor again on Wednesday."

"MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — The Vermont Senate has voted to end the philosophical exemption some parents use to decline to have their children vaccinated. The Legislation would require the full range of required vaccinations as a pre-condition to enrolling in school."

I know that type have been leaving California in dribs and drabs much to the dismay of some of the people I know who live in neighboring states, but is this the thing that will finally drive them all out? and to where?

As to the JAMA paper it is very thin stuff delayed until the day before the vote in California (it was due out last August) and hyped by the media well beyond its miserable substance. If you wanted to do a useful study why would you base it on the billing records of two heavily vaccinated groups? It might just be showing the irrelevance of genetics. The paper's own discussion admits as much.

This kind of reads like Stone, but whatever. I'd be fascinated to learn how the writer inferred when the paper was "due out' (JAMA doesn't even provide a submitted date that I can see).

That's the danger in this. You get someone like Kennedy on Bill Maher and he bleats out all these antivax talking points, Maher agrees with him, both pat themselves on the back and spew the "I'm not anti-vaccine Im pro-SAFE Vaccine" lie, and then Maher trots out a few more antivax talking points. like the one "the CDC makes money off Vaccines" and "why are there 200 vaccines we have to inject our kids with?" and "it's deh toxins!" gambit. Yes, RFK JR was indeed on Realtime this week, and did in fact repeat all his standard talking points. The problem being they seem sincere and well-polished and because of this they convince people who would otherwise know better.

Can anyone please point to at least few scientific papers proving vaccine safety, for everyone, at any age and for a big group of people??? Is there a 100% proof ANYWHERE that vaccines really do work??? Do 'scientists' really understand how the immune system works in all its details so that they can actually heal cancer? After all these are T-cells and macrophages which decide about the defense. To my knowledge the 'science' is FAR AWAY FROM THAT. Every vaccine needs a toxic 'adjuvant' which 'turns on' the immune system, without that toxic material vaccine is USELESS!!! So making a LAW to force introducing toxins into body, without approval of the OWNER OF THE BODY, is CRIMINAL!!! It corresponds to an ANALOG situation with GMO 'food', where incorporation of genes from pathogenic A. Tumefaciens soil bacteria, usually causing cancer in plants (which are WOUNDED!!) end up killing them. That piece of DNA in plant GMO's allows the introduction into a plant genome, of ANY SET OF GENES, because that's what that cancerous soil bacteria can do, when there is a WOUND in its root system!!!
Aluminum, mercury or any other of the toxic adjuvants performs exactly the same function in vaccines, which INJURE the body, in order to introduce 'response' to the sometimes MANY highly 'questionable biological samples' (these days even GENETICALLY MODIFIED!!!). If anyone knows about great 100% safety proofed immune outcome of this procedure, for MANY PEOPLE (each of whom has ENTIRELY DIFFERENT IMMUNE SYSTEM), please post it here. I doubt however anything like that exists, since EVERY VACCINE HAS SFETY SHEETS WITH PAGES OF SIDE EFFECTS, INCLUDING DEATH!!!!

Last, once YOU VACCINATE YOURSELF, and stay presumably safe, why do you still insist that others take THE SAME TOXIC cocktail?? Don't you trust your vaccines ENOUGH?? You should be safe, yes?? Is it because of love to others, or more to pharmaceutical companies?

chris: "Can anyone please point to at least few scientific papers proving vaccine safety, for everyone, at any age and for a big group of people???"

You should answer my question first: please provide the PubMed indexed studies from reputable qualified researchers that any vaccine on the American pediatric schedule causes more harm than the disease.

Try reading more of the posts on this blog. Your questions will be answered. We really do not want to do your homework for you.

"Is there a 100% proof ANYWHERE that vaccines really do work???"

Another question, just to see if you understand data and trends, plus if you can think for yourself other than regurgitate the same anti-vax tropes we have heard in over a decade:

The following is census data for measles cases in the USA during the 20th century. Please tell us why measles incidence dropped 90% between 1960 and 1970. Please do not mention deaths, any other disease, any other country (England and Wales are not American states) nor any other decade. Just tell what happened in that decade in that country with the rate of measles cases, and provide supporting evidence for your answer.

Do ‘scientists’ really understand how the immune system works in all its details so that they can actually heal cancer? After all these are T-cells and macrophages which decide about the defense.

It takes two to dance, smart@ss. Cancer cells - well, the ones who go on to develop into a lethal tumor - are very good at escaping the immune system.

And incidentally, yes, scientists have been working for some time at tricking our immune system at doing a better job against tumor cells. A recent development was the use of viruses to either kill the tumor cells or attract the attention of the immune system.
The Wikipedia article on oncolytic viruses is a very interesting reading, as a starting point.

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